


Echoing Our Song

by Crystalinastar



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hadestown Fusion, Eurydice!Wally, F/M, Greek Mythology Fusion, Hades!Bruce, Hermes!Barry, Inaccurate Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Orpheus!Dick, Persephone!Selina, Tragedy, You know how this goes, tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22366840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalinastar/pseuds/Crystalinastar
Summary: The person Barry's looking for emerges. The person has raven black hair and warm tan skin, and his blue eyes are covered by triangle-shaped sunglasses.Dick Grayson.Dick Grayson’s eyes dart, almost as if they were judging the place. He apparently approves, walking towards the exit.Despite his cheery demeanor, a weight settles in Barry’s stomach.The story begins.-Hadestown AU!
Relationships: Artemis Crock & Wally West, Artemis Crock/Zatanna Zatara (background), Barbara Gordon & Jason Todd, Barry Allen & Wally West, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Selina Kyle, Dick Grayson & Zatanna Zatara, Dick Grayson/Wally West, Selina Kyle & Wally West, Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: 2019 Young Justice Big Bang





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> and it's finally here!!! many thanks to my artist, @weepingonyx on tumblr and noiseofecho on Instagram!! go follow them, they're absolutely fantastic

Barry rushes out of the Tavern, saying he needed a break. Wally agrees to it easily. 

He zips to the train station. The train’s whistle blows, and its doors open, people flooding onto the meager train station. A few to stay, most to stretch their legs and maybe grab a bite to eat. He blends into the crowd. 

Finally, the person he’s looking for emerges. The person has raven black hair and warm tan skin, and his blue eyes are covered by triangle-shaped sunglasses. 

Dick Grayson.

Dick Grayson’s eyes dart, almost as if they were judging the place. He apparently approves, walking towards the exit. 

Good. Barry hates when he has to interfere to make sure it goes the right way. (If he has to and he doesn’t, it ends up worse.)

He runs back to the tavern, a trail of lightning behind him. He swings the employee door open with a grin and a quip and gets back to work.

Despite his cheery demeanor, a weight settles in Barry’s stomach.

The story begins.

* * *

The bells chime unceremoniously as a new customer enters. Wally barely spares them a glance, wiping away at the bar.

Over the constant clink of liquor bottles, Barry says, “Wally! I know it’s my turn but I’m a little… preoccupied, could you take that new one?” He offers a ‘what can you do’ shrug and resumes serving their patrons. 

Wally sighs melodramatically. “Fine.” 

He walks to where someone who is obviously not from around their small town sits. The newcomer has a guitar leaning against the table’s leg, oddly enough, and a smaller backpack resting beside it. Wally clears his throat. “Hi, welcome to the Traveller’s Tavern, how may I help you?”

Their eyes connect. The newcomer’s eyes are blue, but they feel like so much more. There is something about Wally’s professional, service worker demeanor that ebbs away the longer he stares at them, something that soothes the tension like honey on a sore throat. (It’s almost feels like deja vu, because the little specks of gold here and there and moments where the blue dips down into a deeper blue are familiar—but Wally would’ve known if he’d seen these eyes before.)

Wally’s had crushes before, obviously. But this? This feels like it’s more than just a simple crush.

The newcomer lists off his meager order, and Wally notes that it is the cheapest off of their already cheap menu. 

He returns to the table with the french fries the newcomer ordered, and with an extra Shirley Temple. He winks with all the charm of his incessantly flirty teenage self and tells the newcomer, “It’s on the house.”

The newcomer snorts. Wally frowns. “What, you don’t want it? I can grab you your ice water, but _Shirley_ , if you’d just try it, it’d be better than just the water.”

“That pun was _atrocious_. Don’t talk to me again.”

“That’d be kinda hard, ‘cause you’re coming home with me,” he blurts. His eyes go wide as his cheeks flush. That was _way more forward than he was planning on, goddamnit._ “Or did you want to stay at Karen’s bed and breakfast across town?” 

_Nice save._

The newcomer looks unimpressed.

_Or not._

“Listen, I don’t do… relationships,” he says. “And I’m only staying for a few nights.”

“Then there’s no harm, is there?”

The newcomer scoffs. “You’re like too many people I’ve met before.”

Wally’s heart deflates. This guy must get mile-long lines of suitors. How foolish could he be? “Maybe so,” he concedes. To change the subject from his failed wooing, he quickly asks, “You play?” nudging the guitar with his feet.

“Some,” the newcomer replies, still eyeing Wally warily. “My parents taught me.”

“Can I hear?”

The newcomer tenses. “No.” He shakes his head. “Not yet.”

Wally gives him a tiny grin. “Someday, then?”

“I doubt I’ll stick around long enough.”

“Not if you marry me,” Wally murmurs. He decides to shut his trap a moment a moment too late.

The newcomer chews the inside of his cheek. “What makes you different? From all the others? What makes me want to go home with you?”

“Nothing,” Wally answers honestly, “except for maybe having you by my side. I could… make you feel alive?”

There is a beat of silence, the newcomer chewing on his fries. Wally realizes that maybe hanging around this one table for so long hasn’t been the best. His damp rag is still draped on his arm, and he’d hate to work through a wet sleeve for the rest of the night. 

“I’ll just… be going then,” Wally says. 

He hurries back to the bar. 

“Well,” Barry starts, “I’d tell you to not come on too strong, but I guess you’d just ignore it.”

His eyes turn to meet Barry’s. “Rude,” he huffs. “It wasn’t _that_ bad…” Barry stares at him. “Okay, it was that bad.”

Barry laughs, sharp and sudden and definitely at Wally. Wally crosses his arms and pouts. Once Barry’s laughter ceases, he says, “Hey, you could invite him over to your apartment! Just as a place to stay, not as a bed warmer.”

Wally’s cheeks go red, not for the first and absolutely not the last time tonight. “Well, I think I gotta go,” he says rapidly. “Customers… calling.” He runs out of the bar as fast as he can manage.

And finds himself at the newcomer’s table again. 

The newcomer arches one of his rugged eyebrows. _Ruggedly handsome_ , Wally thinks before he can stop himself. At least he didn’t say it aloud this time. “That was fast.”

“What can I say,” Wally nervously chatters, “I’m drawn to you like a moth is to a flame.”

He takes one glimpse at the newcomer’s deadpan expression before deciding that his feet are very, very interesting. His shoes have wings on them, courtesy of Barry and the whole… _wings_ theme he has going with this bar. 

He sighs and looks up again. “If you want, you can stay at my place. Free of charge. No relationship necessary.”

“As long as you stick with that no relationship clause,” the newcomer says warningly. 

“Of course!” Wally insists, his hands held up defensively. “Just one thing. I kinda need the name of the person’s who’s gonna stay in my home.” As an afterthought, he sticks out his hand. “I’m Wally. West.”

The newcomer takes his hand and shakes it. Gods, he has a strong grip. “Names hold power, Wally West,” he says vaguely. “Call me Robin.” The lilt of the newcomer’s—Robin’s—accent rolls the ‘r’ in a way that makes Wally’s heart melt.

Robin stands up. “Should we go?”

“Uh, yeah!” Wally moves towards the bar. “Just lemme check myself out.”

He jogs up to Barry, a grin threatening to split his face. “I’m gonna go. I’ll make it up, I swear!”

Barry looks at him with a fond smile. “It worked?”

“It did,” Wally confirms, nodding. “Can I, um. Take the day off tomorrow?”

“Whatever you need, kid.” Barry shoos him away. “Go! Spend time with the love of your life!” 

Wally is already throwing his satchel over his shoulder. He runs out to meet with Robin.

This was either going to be super heartbreaking or super happy. Maybe both. 

He couldn’t wait.

* * *

Dick doesn’t expect his temporary stay at Wally’s to amount to much. Like he said earlier, he didn’t tend to engage in relationships. They’re too much trouble. He’d just be in for a few days, and when the wind followed him here, he’d be out. (Even if he feels at home absentmindedly counting the freckles on Wally’s glowing cheeks, or the way Wally stops and stammers and is so genuine makes his heart flutter.)

He waits until Wally is in the bathroom, taking a shower from the sounds of it. He hoists his guitar onto his lap and begins to strum. 

And he sings. 

It’s a tune that has been rattling in his skull for days now. He doesn’t know the words, not yet. So he sings, “La, la la la, la la la…” 

The door slams open. Dick presses himself into the couch, and for a moment, he thinks the wind is already here. It goes faster and faster with each passing day. 

But, thankfully, it’s not. It’s just Wally. 

Wally who is staring at Dick open-mouthed and with wonder in his eyes. He watches Wally pull his jaw up and decide on what to say, gaze never leaving Dick. It appears Wally eventually decides on, “That was good. Like, really good.”

And this is the part where Dick has to say something back, except, he finds himself floored by the compliment. It’s just a compliment, he’s gotten many before. Most commonly, he hears them as a single coin drops into a hat and a pitying look is sent his way. 

Wally doesn’t sound like any of them. 

Wally, with his lack of guile, manages to sway Dick. 

He shakes his head. _Don’t get attached_. In the end, he’d have to leave, so getting attached wasn’t in either of their best interests. 

“Thanks,” Dick replies coolly. “Don’t expect it to happen again. I don’t like playing around people I don’t know.”

With the little white lie, he cuts off the connection before it starts. (Not technically a lie. But because he doesn’t like it doesn’t mean he won’t do it. Not when money is involved.)

Wally plops himself down in the seat next to Dick, fire burning in his eyes. “Then I guess you gotta get to know me.”

“No relationships,” Dick blurts out, shifting away from Wally.

“Yeah, of course, dude,” Wally agrees. “But friendship exists.”

Dick curses himself under his breath. Had it really been so long he’d forgotten that he could have connections with people other than entangling himself in their arms? He hadn’t had even an acquaintance since the last time he whored himself out to find food and shelter. (Since the time he swore never to do it again.)

He can’t change his terms now.

“Okay, fine,” he concedes. 

Wally beams. “I wasn’t expecting to get this far,” he admits, making Dick stifle a laugh. “How about… twenty questions? The version where you just ask twenty questions. Which means you ask me and I ask you.”

Dick could always opt out of the game if it neared the edge of truth. So he nods. “Can I ask you a question first?” he asks. 

“The point is to get to know me, isn’t it?” Wally jokes. “So you feel safe around me, and… I was going to say sing around me, but that sounds weird.”

“It’s fine,” Dick says. “My voice _is_ one of a kind.” He clears his throat. “So, Wally West, why are you working at the bar? Besides money, of course.”

Wally looks down, affection tinging his smile. Dick follows his gaze and sees winged shoes. Probably a Traveler’s Tavern signature. Allusions to wings and birds cover the entire place. 

“Barry, the owner? He raised me,” Wally answers. “He’s basically my uncle at this point.”

“Oh.” Dick hadn’t been expecting something so personal. He’d thought Wally would reply something like “Employee benefits” or “Free food.” “Neat. Your turn.”

“What’s your song about?”

“I don’t know,” Dick says honestly. Wally ribs him. “What? It’s true!” 

Wally huffs and rolls his eyes. “Unbelievable. Well, if you insist on being _mysterious_ , then it’s back to your turn.”

Dick asks another question. A meaningless one. Wally replies and questions in turn. Back and forth it goes, until Dick realizes he can’t remember the last time his sides ached this much from laughing, the last time his cheeks hurt from grinning. 

It’s Wally’s last turn, and he asks, “Why can’t you stay in one place forever? Like, here, maybe? Why do you have to leave?”

Dick closes his eyes. Tries to think of how to respond. And all he comes up with is, _The wind, the wind, the wind._

Instead, he says, “Not answering that,” in a clipped tone. 

Wally says, “Yeah, sure,” a little too quick. Dick senses hurt underneath his jovial disposition, and guilt swells in his chest. 

“Sorry,” he says, “it’s a little… personal.”

“No, yeah, I totally get it!” Wally bobs his head enthusiastically, the momentary strain in his voice disappearing.

Wally stands suddenly, and Dick is thrown off his balance as the weight shifts. (He doesn’t want to think about when he had gotten near enough to Wally that he could be thrown off his balance.)

“Good night,” Wally says before turning and entering what is presumably his bedroom.

“Night,” Dick calls after Wally. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” he adds, teasingly.

Wally snickers. “I’ll be sure to not let you in the room.”

An offended noise comes out of Dick’s mouth. “I’ll just stay with the bed and breakfast tomorrow then!” Dick yells. When no muffled response sounds from inside Wally’s room, but snores do, Dick assumes Wally is already asleep. Probably just collapsed on the bed immediately. The thought brings a warmth to him, and he lays down, pulling the blanket over his body.

For the first time in what must’ve been months, Dick falls into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

“How long are you staying?” Wally asks over breakfast. He broke out the meat he was saving for a hungrier day, but it was worth it to see Robin’s wide-eyed, salivating gaze, followed by complete and utter adoration of Wally, even if for a second.

Robin freezes momentarily. “I don’t know. When I feel like it, I guess.”

The temperature in the rooms seems to drop a couple degrees, despite the fact that summer is well on its way. Wally nervously grins and tries to change the subject. “So… you need money, right?” Key word being ‘tries.’

Thankfully, Robin allows for the change. “Don’t we all?”

“Well, I mean—it’s kinda hard for you, right? Traveling like this?” Wally swallows some of the sausage, gesturing with his knife. He stops, notices what he’s doing. And he puts the knife down.

Robin’s eyes hold sparkling amusement at the sight, a laugh contained underneath a secretive smile. “Yeah,” he replies absentmindedly.

“Why don’t you perform?”

Ah, frigidity, Wally’s old friend. Enemy—no, frenemy.

All too late, he realizes that Robin said last night that he doesn’t like performing in front of people he doesn’t know. He opens his mouth to retract his statement, but Robin beats him to the punch.

“I do,” he says softly.

Wally’s glad he put down his knife, because he’s sure if he had it in his hands, it would clatter to the floor. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I do,” Robin repeats. “If I have to. To survive.” His dour looks suggests he isn’t very happy about it.

“Then you don’t have to,” Wally says quickly. “I can get you a temp position at the Tavern.”

Robin shrugs. “It’s cool. I—it’s less personal when you’re up against a crowd. Besides, I’ll have to, sooner or later.”

“No you don’t,” Wally protests. It’s not even a distaste for performing, it’s _personal_. Why would Robin ever consider it? If Wally thinks too hard about his parents, the ones that kicked him out—

He shudders.

“Lemme show you.” Robin picks up his guitar, experimentally plucking at a couple strings. 

No matter how much Wally wants to protest, his curiosity wins out. He leans forward in his chair, listening with rapt attention.

Robin closes his eyes, and his fingers glide over the strings in a way that Wally presumes this is familiar. 

Then, he sings.

He croons soft “la’s” and Wally is riveted. All the tension he didn’t notice was there disappears the moment he begins his quiet tune. And despite the understated nature of it, the song echoes back in Wally’s head, and before he knows it, he’s singing along with it. His voice is raspy and definitely not the smooth-flowing stream Robin’s is, but he joins nonetheless.

And as he does, he listens. Really listens. He feels the way his apartment complex is rooted into the dirt, how the moss covering the edge of his balcony thrives. How the world is dying, growing colder, faster by the minute. 

He surges on. The spring and the fall, they balance out the weather. Without them, the world grows harsh, but he can see a world with spring, flowers blooming everywhere. The fall, crisp air rustling his hair pleasantly as the trees turn picturesque warm shades, instead of dying instantly and staying that way for six months.

He can see the world, and it’s out of tune. 

But maybe they can fix it.

And it stops. The symphony of leaves being blown in the wind, birds chattering, the promise of summer singing vanishes, and Wally’s left with a gaping hole in his chest where the warmth was. 

He looks up.

Robin holds a single carnation, beginning to shrivel at the edges. Wally doesn’t own any flowers, and carnations don’t grow around here. Not anymore. 

“What—”

“That’s what my song does,” Robin tells him. “It’s not much, but—”

“It gives life,” Wally whispers, staring at the carnation. He reaches out to touch the fragile crimson petals, and one snaps off. 

“It’s not finished.”

“You can fix the seasons!” Wally exclaims. “You can fix the way the world’s become. It’s like a gift from the gods.”

Robin looks to the ground. His feet press down into the carpet, and Wally spots a dent. “I’ve been trying. And it’s not a gift. It’s a curse.” He spits out the words, like they’ve killed his family. “I can’t—I can’t get the stupid song right. I change it, and I rewrite it, and no matter what, this tune will never work. Not for real.”

“Write it,” Wally says, pleading. “Lock yourself in my room. Stay in the Tavern all day. I don’t care, you have to _write it_.”

Several months of summer that leads straight into winter lessens the harvest. It damages the crops, spooks the animals. And it gets worse every year. Wally can’t imagine ten years down the line, when the gnawing hunger in his stomach, which is like a forgettable ache now, will become.

“I can’t!” Robin is unusually ruffled by the whole affair, his eyes darting wildly. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Wally snaps. 

Robin looks like a scared animal at the remark, visibly flinching. His hands shake and his breathing is uneven.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

 _Dick move, West_ , he mentally scolds himself. Of course Robin has been trying. But clearly, there’s some kind of block. Some trauma, underneath the surface. Robin’s been showing all the signs of Wally just ignored them like a fucking idiot. 

“I have to go,” he says, before running out the door. 

* * *

Dick’s heart burns. He doesn’t want to think about why. 

The thought keeps coming back to him anyways. How awful does he have to be to let his past affect everyone else? He could save the world, and he just _doesn’t_. Wally’s right to yell at him for it. 

Wally, who didn’t think Dick noticed the reluctance Wally showed to frying sausages for breakfast. It was one of the most filling meals Dick remembers eating for years, and from the looks of it, Wally is the same. (Guilt makes another pang in the confines of his heart at taking advantage of Wally’s hospitality like that.)

He never even told Wally his real name. 

He has to make it up to Wally, Dick decides. He has to do something about it. 

His hand rests on the leather-bound notebook, hooked onto his belt. He always keeps it on his person, but words never come. 

But maybe all he needs is inspiration. 

And he knows the perfect place to go.

* * *

Wally knocks thrice on the door.

The door swings open, and it reveals a disgruntled blonde, who is glaring daggers at Wally. “I swear, West, you know I’m busy—” She stops and eyes Wally. “You look like shit. Come inside.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “Thanks, Artie.” He walks in, heading straight for the only chair that doesn’t have duct tape.

“Don’t call me that.” Artemis’ mirth shines underneath her scowl.

He’s able to grin, if only for a moment. “Of course, Artie.” He sits, the chair creaking slightly.

Artemis chooses to stand, leaning against the wall casually. “What’d you mess up?”

Wally groans, his head falling into his hands. “I met this guy last night, and I _really_ like him, and I thought we had something good going.”

“You met him last night?”

“And then we’re—we’re doing well, and I say something really stupid, and—” He exhaled, relieved to get it out. “Here I am.”

Artemis’ eyebrows scrunch up, in the way she does when she’s thinking something over. “You just… ran out?”

The way she’s saying it now kinda makes his choice of action sound dumb and impulsive, which is pretty on par with the course for Wally, honestly, but again—dumb and impulsive. He crosses his arms. “To be fair, there was absolutely no way he could’ve taken that as not an insult to his character.”

“What’d you say?”

“Well, it’s kinda hard to explain…” 

And he does, with wild hand gestures. Artemis leans in, listening intently, like she’s not quite sold on the whole thing but is willing to give it a listen. Wally tells her, the best he can, about the ethereal experience, how Robin’s singing and strumming elevated everything and it was like he was on a different plane.

“The way he sang…” he says softly. “It made me feel like things could change. _We_ could change it. And, y’know, he created actual life, in his hands. That’s gotta count for something.”

He shudders. “And then we got into a fight. And he… gods, I feel like an ass. He’s got some sort of PTSD going on, and he was so convinced he couldn’t do it. He was hysterical. And I just—I just kept fighting for it, and fighting for it, and I was pressuring him so much, and I realized that he was—well. He was on the verge of a panic attack, Artie. I did that.”

“That’s…” Artemis blows out a breath. “Wow, Wally. That’s something.” 

She easily slides into a seat across from Wally and stares at him with her gentle gray eyes. “I don’t think it was your fault, though. Obviously you screwed up, but you’re not in the wrong.” Her eyes steel, the melted metal solidifying into stronger beams. “If he can make the world a better place, he has to. The world’s shit enough as it is. If he can _change the seasons_ , eh. But I haven’t seen a spring or fall since…” She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

Her lips quirks into something approximating amusement. “It’s not ruined. Remember when you asked me out and you could barely stammer the words out?”

“You said you liked me better like that,” Wally replies, feigning offense.

“I still do.” Artemis laughs. “You called yourself ‘The Wall-Man.’ That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.”

“Every girl wanted a piece of this!” Wally argues, pointing at his chest with his thumbs. 

“No, Wally. No one did.”

The pair of them giggle and snort, recalling their secondary school days as the grumpy archer and the horniest kid on the block. They look at each other fondly. Their relationship may not have worked out, but they’re all the better for it. 

Wally stands up, almost knocking over the chair. He catches it when it’s halfway to tipping over. “I think I know what to do now, Artie. Thanks.”

“Not a problem, West.” Artemis shoots him finger-guns. “Get your man!”

A woman Wally vaguely recognizes as the magician that’s in town wanders out of the bedroom, rubbing her eyes. “Turn it down, babe,” she murmurs. What’s her name? It’s something outlandish. Something with a ‘z.’

Artemis’ cheeks go the reddest shade of pink he’s ever seen on her. “Not the time, Zatanna…” she responds. (Aha! Zatanna.)

“I’m just gonna go…” Wally makes a break for it and practically launches himself out of the door, ignoring the yelling from Artemis all the while. (And the kiss noises from Zatanna. He especially ignores the kiss noises.)

He walks with swagger in his stride down to his apartment. He knows what to do. It’ll be fine.

* * *

Dick plops himself down in one of the half-rotating seats in the Traveller’s Tavern. The owner, apparently making a statement with his bright red apron and yellow winged sleeves, walks over. 

“Kid,” the owner begins. His name tag reads, ‘Barry.’ “What are you doing here? It’s ten in the morning.”

“I’m not here for alcohol,” he replies. Short and sweet, as is his style. “I’m here about Wally.”

Barry sighs. “What’d he do?” Concern tinges his exasperated tone. _He must really care about Wally,_ Dick thinks.

“He’s a great guy, don’t worry.” He takes out his songbook, flips to the first blank page which is the first page. “I’m here to make an apology. So I’m… writing a song for him. What do I make it about?”

“Food,” Barry jokes. “The kid can’t get enough of it.” 

Dick’s face goes completely flat, in the way he knows has frightened some. He’s got it down to a science. 

Barry concedes. “Stories about hope,” he says. “I told him about the gods, y’know. When he was younger.”

“Which was his favorite?” Dick asks quickly, sitting up a little straighter. He was always a fan of Apollo when he was a child. His parents told him all about Apollo’s exploits. 

“Persephone and Hades.” Barry’s eyes twinkle with knowledge, with something Dick doesn’t know. Not yet. “She comes up here. Every summer. She… she goes away too soon.”

Persephone and Hades. They were a close second to the tales of Apollo he got told, he could work with this. Immediately, Dick thinks of their classic story. Boy meets girl, falls in love, and Persephone follows him down to the Underworld. She is whisked away to the land up above during the spring and summer, and is pulled down to the Underworld during the winter, creating the seasons. 

The seasons that Wally wants him to fix. 

Oh, he could definitely work with this. 

He took hold off his guitar and played a few notes. Barry excuses himself to the kitchen, so Dick has the Tavern to himself.

When he sings, it’s clumsy, half-done. He alternates between playing the note, singing the lyrics, and scribbling down the lyrics in his notebook. For the first time since he’s had it, the pages fill up rapidly. 

He belts out the story of the king of shadows, who met a beautiful lady gathering flowers, looking like an angel under the light of the sun. How he fell in love instantly, how he didn’t hesitate to take her down below. How the world above suffered without his life and soul, how Persephone ached to aid them, to make their flowers grow. How Hades agreed to let go of Persephone for half of each year, how the seasons were cultivated. 

He inhales. 

“La, la la la, la la la…” 

“Where’d you get that melody?”

Dick stops, just finishing the ‘a’ of ‘la.’ The ink smudges a bit. “What?”

“That melody,” Barry says, tapping his foot. When did he get here? “The la la la’s.”

“I don’t know,” Dick answers, tilting his head. “It came to me, and I can’t get it out of my head.”

Barry seems satisfied with the reply, though Dick can’t fathom what must be so striking about it. “Continue,” says Barry.

Dick obliges. He strums and he la’s and he hums. And he finishes the song.

He caps his pen with a staggering amount of pride. 

Barry beams at him. “Wally’ll love it.”

* * *

Wally pants, the door swinging open. “Robin!” he cheers, spotting the singer with ink-stained fingers sitting at the bar. 

“Wally!” Robin responds. “Just the person I was looking for.” He pats the seat beside him, and Wally sits in it. His legs thank him. 

“So, um.” Wally fidgets with his hands, folding them in and out and in and out. “I need to apologize. I know you probably have a lot going on, and you don’t need the literal weight of the world on your shoulders, and I feel like shit for trying to pressure you. So, I’m sorry.”

Robin stares and stares and stares with that horrifying blank expression, and Wally thinks for a moment that he’s just going to stand up and walk out. Just like that. And Wally will slump and Barry will give him a consolation drink. 

And then, Robin laughs, high and sharp and sounds more like a cackle. This is almost worse than the blank face, actually. “I’m sorry,” Robin says, still doubled over. “Sorry. Just. I was gonna apologize. Because you’re right. I can’t let my past continue to… control me. I need to get over it.” (Wally’s heart clenches, because there are some things you never get over.) “So I wrote a song.”

Wally’s lips part in a gasp, and he urges, “ _Play it_.”

And Robin plays. His crooning voice sweeps over the tale of Hades and Persephone, and Wally grins ear to ear at how Robin describes his favorite goddess. Persephone would hate the way the song exposed how soft her heart was, instead of going over her jagged exterior, or maybe she would love it. She would pretend to hate it, then love it. 

Robin repeats the tune he sang for Wally that morning. Wally stays grounded throughout—he can’t exactly let himself float away when Robin is singing something for _him_. 

His cupped hands open at the end, the last few notes ebbing away, to reveal a familiar carnation. This time, death isn’t creeping up on it, but rather, it’s fresh and lively and smells of the spring he’d only sampled once before, in song form. Robin offers it out to Wally by the stem. 

Wally tucks it into his hair, in his sweet spot over his ear. “That was beautiful,” he says honestly. “You could use that to bring back the seasons as far as I’m concerned.”

Robin purses his lips. “It’s not strong enough. Plus, there’s one more thing I wanted to do.”

“And what was that?”

Robin leans in close. “I want to tell you my name. I… I trust you.” 

Wally melts into the almost-touch, and into Robin’s proclamation. “Well, I don’t like to be kept waiting. The suspense, Rob. What’s your name?”

Robin takes a breath. “Dick.”

Wally snorts.

The newly-named Dick’s nose flares. “Not like that, dumbass! It’s a nickname for Richard.”

“And out of all of them,” Wally starts, “you chose _Dick_?”

“My five-year-old self thought it was a good idea,” Dick defends. 

Wally softens. “I—thanks for telling me.”

Dick claspses his hand with Wally’s. “You do make me feel alive, Wally West. That’s worth a lot. You’re… you’re sunlight, and I’m forgetting how cold the world can be.”

“Don’t pull out poetry on me now,” Wally remarks. “But, yeah. When I saw you last night? I had deja vu. It felt like I’d met you before. Like we’d been together in another life.”

“What about this one?” Dick asks, and moves forward.

Wally meets his lips in a kind of quick peck of a first kiss. They stay connected for a second then pull away, but the sensation lingers. It _dances_.

As Dick glances at Wally, shocked and shy, Wally realizes something important. 

“Does this mean you can’t stay at my place anymore?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick won’t think about it. He’s made his choice, and he’s content. If it comes for him, it will have to face him head on. He’s done running from it. 
> 
> He’ll just tell Wally that later. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, my artist is!!! incredible!!! I love them so much. Check them out @weepingonyx (tumblr) and noiseofecho on Instagram!! (I swear I'll link them later, but html is,,, not my thing)

Barry watches Dick and Wally as he washes dishes, trying very hard to make it seem like he’s not paying attention to their conversation. Spring is approaching. Selina will be here soon. 

“I’m staying,” Dick declares, and Wally responds by peppering Dick with kisses all over his cheek, and eventually on his lips. 

He’s glad for them. They always manage to have at least a good couple months of happiness each time, sometimes a couple years if they’re lucky. It looks like this will be one of the shorter cycles, though, and Barry hopes they enjoy it while it lasts. 

* * *

Dick lies in Wally’s bed, the soft rays of sunlight peeking in through the holes in Wally’s worn curtains. His back faces Wally. He curls up into a violent ball at the thought of cuddling with Wally throughout the night, though his touch-starved ass wants it desperately. Not… not yet. 

He slips out of bed and stretches, bending down to reach his toes then folding over backwards so that his hands reach the floor. He leans against the wall so he can practice a vertical split. 

“Holy shit.”

If Dick were a less trained man, he would’ve fallen backwards. Luckily, he is able to grip onto the wall and lower his legs into a less precarious position. He turns around to see Wally bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eyes roaming his figure. 

“What?”

“Are you kidding?” Wally wildly gestures to Dick. “That—the stretchy thing you just did. I knew you could sing, I knew you could play, and there’s still new stuff I’m learning about you.” A faint smiles graces Wally’s face.

Dick shrugs, but his face burns. He’s been complimented all too many times for his music, but not for his acrobatics or gymnastics, not since that night. “It’s not that special.”

Lies. 

If possible, Wally’s eyes bugs out of his head more than before. “Where do you come from where doing a split against the wall isn’t that special?”

“A little bit of everywhere,” Dick quips, though not lying. He doesn’t know where he was born, on account of the circus moving from place to place as quickly as the wind. 

Speaking of—

No. He won’t think about it. He’s made his choice, and he’s content. If it comes for him, it will have to face him head on. He’s done running from it. 

He’ll just tell Wally that later. 

* * *

Wally finishes wiping down the bar and he throws his towel at the bin. It lands on the edge. _Good enough._

Barry looks at it and chuckles. “Alright, kid, I guess you can have a break.”

“Sweet! Thanks!”

Wally runs into the back room as quick as he can, and as expected, Dick is there strumming his guitar to a familiar tune. He has the sudden urge to kiss Dick’s cheek before he notices that Wally is there, so he leans in.

And Dick jumps back.

His chest expands and collapses multiple times, and his eyes are wide. Panicked. Then he spots Wally and visibly relaxes. “Thought you were someone else,” Dick says with an easy grin that makes Wally think he imagined Dick’s adverse reaction.

No, it was there. Dick’s breathing hasn’t completely slowed down, nor has the tension in his shoulders. Whereas before Dick was slouching, now he’s sitting completely upright. 

“Oh?” Wally’s eyebrow arches. “Who could possibly be mistaken for me? I’m a special snowflake, darling.” He plops down onto the floor and crosses his legs. “Whatcha working on?”

He’ll mention the weird reaction in a second.

(Spoiler alert: he doesn’t.)

* * *

“Bad storm,” Barry announces at the end of Wally’s shift. He frowns. “I want you two to stay with me.”

“You live here?” Dick asks. “No wonder you’re always at the bar.”

Barry snorts. “It’s one of the perks, for sure.”

Thunder crashes outside. Dick violently flinches. _It’s just a normal storm. There’s no need to worry._

“The first storm of the season,” he hears Barry mutter to himself.

Yeah, it’s a normal storm. Not one of the wilder ones where wind whips everywhere, the ones that have been known to destroy towns. 

Wally tugs Dick’s arm. “C’mon, let’s get upstairs. My room has no windows.”

Dick blinks twice. “You have a room here?” Then he remembers Wally saying, a while ago, that he was raised by Barry, which makes sense. The camaraderie between the two isn’t just for show. 

“Yeah. It’s kinda small, but we’ll work with it.” 

Wally leads Dick to the hidden staircase tucked into a back corner. It leads into something just slightly bigger than Wally’s apartment, but much more neat and kept up. More feathers imagery could be found strung along the walls, but interestingly, he also sees little cartoonish lightning bolts everywhere. 

“What’s with the feathers and the lightning?” Dick asks.

Wally laughs. “No clue. I asked Barry once, and he stared dramatically into the distance without answering. I think he just likes birds and weather, honestly. This way.” 

As they turn a hallway, Dick’s hip knocks into something that sounds like a tin can. When he stops and bends to pick it up, he sees that it’s a helmet, metal, and lightning bolt shaped feathers decorating it. He purses his lips as he sets it back on its corridor table. There is no way that Barry just happened upon something like this at a flea market. 

With one final drag and push, Dick stumbles into Wally’s room. Its walls are white, because paint is expensive he presumes, but is otherwise littered with Wally’s personality. The wall holds posters featuring race car drivers and homemade macaroni frames with printed quotes about hope. Despite Wally having his own apartment, Dick can barely spot a few non-hazardous places to step on. And the bed, of course, is an awful eye-burning mix of mustard yellow and bright red.

Dick cackles. “This is terrible. I love it.”

“ _Rude_ ,” Wally huffs. “I could’ve made you sleep on the couch.”

“But you won’t,” Dick points out. “You’re clingy, West.”

“Yeah, like you’re not,” Wally retorts. “I wake up in the middle of night to get water and you’re on my back like a koala.”

_What?_

He crosses his arms. “To be fair, I didn’t know I was doing that.” He carefully tiptoes around the bed. “I get the bigger side, right?” He sits on the bed, causing it to creak. Just sitting on the side, he already takes up a sizable amount. “Never mind, I don’t think there is a big side.”

“You got that right,” Wally murmurs. “I guess we’re gonna get real close and personal tonight, huh?”

Dick’s chest squeezes. “I don’t want to take up too much space. I can take the couch.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I insist,” Dick says. “I’m a sleepwalker, y’know. Need my space, plus no foot hazards.”

Wally seems to accept his excuse, as he rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure, fine. It’s Barry’s fault, anyways. He said he didn’t want to touch my room whenever he cleans because it’s ‘already too late,’ whatever that means.”

Dick eyes the room. “He’d be right. I can barely walk in here.”

“ _I_ can navigate it just fine.”

“That’s ‘cause it’s your room, babe.”

“Fair point.”

* * *

Wally heads back for his apartment, pulling on his jacket. It’s fucking _freezing_ and it doesn’t even look like it’s gonna snow. 

Barry let him off early, due to the fact that no one was coming in. If they were, it was to get out of the cold. Which is weird, because it barely ever gets this cold around here. That last time Wally can remember it was this cold is when he was maybe sixteen. 

He practically throws himself inside the stairwells and runs to his third floor apartment. It burns in his legs and he grins. This is what he needed to warm himself up. 

Once he’s inside his apartment and closes the door, he cups his hands and says, “Dick! I’m home!”

Silence. 

“Dick?”

Wally knows Dick’s here—they discussed him staying back to try writing his song this morning—but Dick wouldn’t ignore him. Their relationship is going well, right?

Wally takes another step into his apartment. Cranes his neck. And that’s when he hears something from the bathroom, something sharp. A gasp, maybe. 

His legs carry him to the bathroom as fast as he can manage and he slams open the door. 

Dick’s hands are over his ears and he scoots backwards, pressing his back to the bathtub at the noise. His eyes are wide and judging from the inhale Wally hears, he’s not doing too well.

A panic attack. 

Wally crouches down and puts a hand on Dick’s arm gently. Dick takes it back with a ferocity, and Wally pretends that didn’t sting. “Hey,” he whispers, “hey, Dick. Rob. I’m here. Can you hear me?”

Dick slowly nods, taking his hands off his ears and instead opting to wrap them around himself tightly. 

Wally runs through the different exercises to help with panic attacks he knows. Most of them were used to help Artemis at first, in PE where she would get them because the drills reminded her of her dad, so naturally, not all of them are the perfect fit for Dick. He wants to use a breathing one, but knows from experience that trying to breathe right when you just can’t is sometimes too difficult and increases the pressure, making it worse.

Wait, he’s got it.

“Close your eyes,” he instructs. “Think about your happy place. The one place you will always feel relaxed in, the one thing with nothing… negative attached. List five things you can see in your head. Bright colors or funky animals, just do whatever. Then…” He lists off the other four senses. “Open your eyes and breathe in. Breathe out.”

Dick does it, and his breathing is back at a normal rate. Despite having barely moved, he looks less crazed and fearful, less like someone’s who’s about to run.

“Thanks,” Dick croaks out, his voice raspy with what sounds like pent-up tears and mucus. 

“Anytime,” Wally replies. “That’s what boyfriends are for, right?” He wants to ask what had gotten Dick in such a state, but he knows better than to pry, especially when Dick’s in such a fragile state. “Wanna play a card game?”

Dick gains a wicked smirk, one still marred by the quivering edges, but it’s there. “How about B.S.?”

Wally groans loudly. “You know I suck at that.”

His smirk grows wider. “That’s why I chose it.”

* * *

Barry is surprisingly helpful whenever Dick needs to develop the song he’s working on, but faces a deadly foe at the same time: writer’s block.

“I just don’t know how this blessing from the gods thing works,” Dick says, frustrated. “Does it just… happen? Is there something that triggers it?”

“It’s the melody,” Barry says immediately. “The la la la one. That’s Persephone’s and Hades’ song, you know. Add that to your gift, and it, well. You know what it does.”

“But how do I get it to give me more than a flower?” 

Barry shrugs. “Kid, I have no clue. How about developing the song that leads up to it? Maybe it’ll be like a crescendo of sorts, and it has to build up.”

“Maybe…”

Dick jots down a few notes into his notebook, on his brainstorming page. “I just… I gotta get this right. I gotta get it right soon.”

Barry raises his eyebrows. “We’ve survived this long. We can survive another winter.”

“No, it’s…” Dick trails off. “It’s just that winter gets worse and worse every year. I want to get this done as fast as I can.” It’s not entirely a lie, more of an omission of truth, so Dick counts that as a win. He shakes his head. “Tell me more.”

“About Hades or Persephone?”

Dick opens his mouth to say, “Persephone,” but stops. According to Barry and Wally, he should meet the woman soon. “Hades,” he answers instead. 

“Well,” Barry begins, “you obviously know about him being King of the Underworld. Shadows, shades, all that jazz.” (Dick takes note of the shadows and shades thing. If played right, it could be pretty poetic.) “And his marriage to Persephone. But you don’t know—” Barry pauses. “You probably don’t know that his brothers are Zeus and Poseidon themselves.”

Dick’s face morphs into a deadpan expression. It’s common knowledge, so Barry is definitely holding back on him. “I’ll be sure to add that,” he says dryly. “Hades loved Persephone so much, and did you know his brothers were lightning and ocean adulterers? That definitely bodes well for their relationship.”

Wally bursts into the Tavern. “You guys made any progress?” he asks, tying his apron around his waist. He always ties it too tight, and the apron looks stiff, but Dick thinks it’s cute so he never mentions it. 

“Nope,” Dick replies, popping the ‘p.’ “I dunno, maybe I should approach this from a different angle. Maybe something about Aphrodite, or Athena, or maybe even Dionysus. That would make an interesting song.”

“No,” Barry says firmly. “That’s Hades’ and Persephone’s song, so if you use it, you tell their story.”

Wally presses a kiss to Dick’s cheek, and Dick’s heart almost stops. The kiss isn’t as bad as he feared, though, so he allows it. “You gotta admit, babe, he’s not wrong.”

Dick rolls his eyes. “Fine, I’ll use Hades and Persephone. Just gotta tell you that I’m not getting very far with it.”

“Wait for Persephone to get here,” Wally says. “She’ll have ideas.”

Would it be too late by then? Would it be too dangerous? Or would Persephone quell the winds with her presence? Only time would tell. 

“Yeah, okay,” he agrees softly. 

* * *

Wally bounces on his toes in front of the door. Dick glances at him, amused. “Why are you nervous? This is _your_ best friend.”

“Yeah, but what if she doesn’t like you?” He taps his fingers to his sides impatiently.

Dick sighs wearily. “I’m sure we’ll get along fine. Besides, if she doesn’t like me, I don’t have to talk to her ever again. I’m an adult, Wally, I can handle myself.”

Wally frowns. “ _Yeah_ , but—”

The door opens. 

“Hey West,” Artemis greets, dressed up in motorcycle leathers. Her most expensive and intimidating outfit, Wally knows. “Hey you.”

Oh shit, Wally forgot to tell Artemis Dick’s name.

“Hey yourself,” Dick responds effortlessly, turning on the charm. It really is like a light switch. If Wally hadn’t been there, he never would’ve guessed Dick’s vibe a moment prior was exhausted because of Wally’s (not needless, but that’s what both Dick and Artemis say) anxieties. Wally’s cheeks burn and he stares into the ground for a moment. 

Once he recovers, he says, “Dick? Artemis. Artemis? Dick,” while vaguely gesturing towards them both. 

“Dick?” Artemis asks incredulously.

“You know, I get that a lot,” Dick says. “Thinking I should change it to Richie, but that would ruin my image.”

Wally scrunches up his nose. “Do not change it to Richie.”

Artemis pinches the bridge of her nose. “Yeah, I can see why you’re together. You’re both idiots. Come inside.”

With that, she walks confidently into her small apartment, choosing to settle on the worn couch.

Dick looks at Wally with an expression he can only hope means good things. “She’s interesting. I like her.”

Wally lets go of some of the tension in his shoulders, though Artemis’ opinion is yet to be known. The worst thing about being close to both Dick and Artemis is that they can be completely unreadable when they want to be, and it just causes Wally worry and confusion. 

“C’mon,” he says, dragging Dick to the couch. Wally sits in the middle, the metaphorical and literal connection between the two. 

“What kind of takeout you guys want?” Artemis says. “You guys owe me later, by the way.”

“No problem,” Dick replies. Wally eyes him curiously. Didn’t he only have a few savings leftover from when he performed in his last town? “And whatever you want is fine.”

“Pizza!” Wally exclaims. 

“Sounds good to me.”

Artemis snorts. “You’ve never eaten pizza with Wally before. He eats the entire pizza by the time you’ve had your first slice.”

“Hey!” 

“I’m not apologizing.”

Dick snickers. “If I know anything about you, it’s that you eat a lot. So I’d believe it.”

Wally dramatically beats his chest. “Betrayed by my beloved and my… trusted.”

Dick and Artemis break out into a full-out laugh at his expense. Wally pouts. “This is unfair.”

Artemis holds out her hand, extending it past Wally. “You’re not that bad. I approve.”

Dick takes the hand hesitantly, shaking it hard. “This is going to be fun. Meet up next week to make fun of Wally?”

Artemis grins. “Always.”

* * *

_A snap, and then they’re falling, falling, falling—_

Dick’s eyes open and he lurches up into a sitting position. He checks the clock beside the bed. _5:34_ , it reads. 

It’s too early, but he hasn’t had one of those dreams for a little bit. For about two and a half weeks, the amount of time that passed since he met Wally. There’s no way he’s getting back to sleep now. 

He slides off the bed, and he’s learned his lesson, so he heads into the living room and does his stretches. By the time he’s done, it’s only six, and he has nothing else to do. He could make himself a cup of coffee, but he’s very awake, so it would be a waste. 

But maybe he could make something else. 

He rummages through the fridge until he finds what he needs: bell peppers. Wally doesn’t usually have them, but on the last trip to the grocery, Dick convinced him because he likes to snack on them if there is nothing else. (Dick will pay him back, eventually. He swears it.)

He hums and whistles as he works, boiling the bell peppers and stuffing them with onions, corn, and some chopped up chili pepper. He grins as he covers the top generously with cheese and puts it in the oven. It’s a more costly meal than he’s eaten since the first morning he was here, but the look on Wally’s face when he awakes will be payment enough. 

A memory lingers of eating the stuffed peppers as a child. They had a name he can’t recall, even though he can speak Romani fluently (he’s a little rusty, but it works), but he remembers loving them.

His heart aches at that, and he does more stretches in the middle of the living room. Soon enough, a mouthwatering smell wafts in from the kitchen, and apparently makes its way to the bedroom, as Wally stumbles out, barely coherent. 

“Wha…?”

It’s been thirty minutes, so Dick rushes to pull the tray out of the oven. The bell peppers look even better when done, and his stomach grumbles. 

Wally runs up to it, grabs a bell pepper, and takes a bite. Dick can’t help but laugh at the absurd sight of a bite mark in the pepper. “Slow down,” he cautions. “You’re supposed to eat that with a fork and knife.”

“But it’s good,” Wally says through a mouth of stuffed pepper, so it actually sounds like, “Buh ish good.”

“I know,” Dick says lightly, “it’s my mom’s recipe.” His smile tightens. 

Wally swallows and kisses Dick on the cheek, leaving a mark of melted cheese. 

“Ew,” Dick says, wiping the cheese off, with a voice warmed by mirth. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Wally takes two plates and some cutlery from his drawers. “Let’s eat!”

* * *

“What do you think we’ll do when we get married?” Wally asks, tossing an apple in the air and catching it. 

Dick arches an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a little fast?”

“Hypothetically.”

“I don’t think we could have a wedding,” Dick says. “I mean, we’d have to buy so much. Wedding bands. Food. Wedding beds…” 

“But you could just—” Wally snaps, “—sing it into existence. Make the rivers favor you, so they give us gold. Enchant the sky and the birds with your voice.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Dick replies flatly. His eyes go wide. “Or, I didn’t think so…” He stands up abruptly. “I’m gonna sing to trees, talk to you later.” 

Wally laughs as Dick runs out the door. 

Changing the world, fixing it, seems more and more possible everyday. 

* * *

Dick knows how hopeful Wally is. He knows that whenever they talk about music, Wally thinks of Dick’s song, and when he thinks of Dick’s song, he imagines the world as it was before. Lush and vibrant and alive. 

All Dick used to see when he hummed that tune was the way the world was. If he didn’t close his eyes, lost in the notes, he would notice the stark contrast between the almost melancholy beauty of the song and the dying world around him. 

Wally tells him he saw the world as it could be. With his help, Dick’s beginning to see it too. He can imagine what it would be like if harvests became more bountiful, so that prices would go down. So that people weren’t fighting for the last scraps. He can imagine the sun being more frequent than the first few days he visits a town, before the wind comes. He can imagine the wind gone, banished, never haunting him again, and him staying in a town.

He sits down at the kitchen counter, his notebook illuminated by pale moonlight.

_The way the world could be._

He writes.

* * *

Wally’s had a late shift at the bar. More folks come around this time of year, when Persephone is bringing joy and summertime. Persephone’s a bit late, he thinks, but it’s not unusual. Persephone’s always been late to arrive and early to leave. 

He opens the door and hears faint breathing from his bedroom. A smile graces his lips. _Dick’s already asleep? Good on him._

He tiptoes inside, holding back a chuckle at the way Dick’s pen and notebook rest on his stomach, taking the place of the forgotten blanket near his feet. 

Dick’s lips twitch, and he rolls over. “No,” he whispers. “No, no, no, _nu_.” He speaks a little more in a language Wally’s never heard, and inhales sharply. 

This is a nightmare.

Wally sits on the side of the bed, shaking Dick’s side. “C’mon, babe, wake up. It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream.”

He coaxes Dick awake for a couple minutes, before his boyfriend’s eyes flutter open hastily. They dilate, and Dick’s sleepily slow arm clutches onto Wally’s wrist. “Don’t leave me,” he mumbles, tinged with pain and loss.

“I won’t,” Wally promises. “I’m right here. Dick, I’m right here.”

Dick’s eyes well up with tears and he blinks them away. “Sorry,” he says, clearer now, “for waking you up.”

“Don’t worry, I just got home,” Wally replies, soothing and gentle. He rubs circles into Dick’s arm, and for once, Dick doesn’t shy away from the touch. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay.” 

Wally lies down with Dick, murmuring sweet nothings until Dick falls asleep.

* * *

The wind swirls and howls and Dick closes his eyes, pretending he doesn’t hear. He stands up and shuts the curtains. He has to get to work.

He writes another version of the Hades and Persephone tale, and scraps it. He’d thought he’d try a more direct approach, less of the flowy metaphors, more of the plain old storytelling. But then it loses its magic, and what little power the story does hold goes away. 

A chill passes through his body, and Dick has a whole-body shiver. The jangle of the keys catches his attention, and his head whips around to see Wally opening the door. 

“Stop!” he blurts. 

Wally pauses, turning to look at Dick. “What is it, babe?”

The windows rattle. Dick sucks in a breath. “I just… I don’t think it’s safe for you out there. Not with that wind.”

Wally smiles, placatingly. _He’s not listening to me_. “It’s fine, happens every winter.” He has his hand on the knob. “Wait. It’s almost summer. What the hell?”

Dick stiffens. The wind, he can’t pretend it’s not here any longer. It’s here, it’s here because of him, and if Wally goes out there, the wind will do what it’s always done: take his loved ones away. He shudders at the thought of three women who move like they are the silk of their dresses, twirling and quiet and dangerous. The three women who disappear when a gust of snow blinds you momentarily. 

He wants to stay, but for Wally’s sake, he has to leave. He has to leave, roam from town to town, do whatever it takes to survive. He’s barely been here a month, but the thought of doing what he’s always done causes an uncomfortable pang in his chest. 

“Nothing,” Dick says softly. “Never mind. I just… freaked out for a second.”

Wally walks over to Dick, a frown on his face. He bends down to peck Dick on the cheek. “I gotta go so I can pay rent, but I’ll come back. I’ll be back sooner than you know it, I promise.”

_No, you won’t._

“Yeah,” Dick agrees, _lies_ , with his lips trying to imitate a reassuring smile. “Yeah, I know. Go.”

“So eager to get away from me,” Wally jokes, heading out the door. Dick blinks. Wasn’t Wally by his side a second ago?

He shakes his head. His lover has always been fast, it’s nothing. 

Once the door clicks closed, Dick begins packing. Clothes, a little food, a little money, just the bare essentials—plus, his guitar. 

He has to get out of here before the wind swallows Wally whole. 

* * *

Wally holds his jacket close around his chest. This amount of wind without rain doesn’t seem right, even if the weather and the seasons get worse and worse every year. 

The sign on the Tavern says closed. Wally opens the door anyways. Maybe it’s a late opening. 

Barry is wiping down the bar when he arrives. 

“Hey,” he greets hesitantly, looking over the empty tavern. “Shouldn’t you have opened by now?”

“Wally,” Barry says, stressing the two syllables in a way he knows is important, “shouldn’t you be at home? Did you hear the news?”

A pit drops in his stomach. Dick’s fear, more than a quivering flash, imprints itself in his mind. “...No?”

“Wally, tonight is the worst windstorm the town has experienced in a long time. Did you walk here?” Wally nods. “You shouldn’t be out. Everyone’s been advised to stay inside.”

“That makes sense,” Wally murmurs, mostly to himself. “Shit. I gotta get home to Dick.”

Wally isn’t an idiot, though he can be less perceptive than he’d like. There is no way he can miss the way the cold wind frightens Dick. The other recent major storm sent him spiraling into a panic attack, and he's pretty sure his worst nightmare happened when the blanket was out of reach. Dick must be losing his mind over the storm. 

Barry’s eyes hold indecision, though Wally doesn’t know why. Barry bites his lip, and tells him, “Take some food with you first. Eat something. For a boost.”

He runs to the kitchen. Wally has never seen him run before (why hasn’t he seen him run before?), and it is something ethereal. A golden light follows Barry, and within a second, he’s out with a bowl of steaming stew. 

“What was that…?” he asks in awe.

Barry smiles grimly in response. 

Wally scarfs down the food, bids goodbye to Barry, and heads out the door. The wind is stronger than he’d last been outside, and he stumbles momentarily. He squints, and thinks he can see the silhouettes of three women, but they vanish as soon as he blinks. 

He shakes his head. He’s got to get back home to Dick. 

He runs and he runs and he runs, like no time he’s ever run before. This time, a clarity fills his head, and his worries about the rent, and the storm, and Dick disappear like feathers floating in air. 

He skids to a stop in front of his apartment. When he’s inside the lobby, he sees Dick, who is shaking and is also wearing the ratty backpack he was wearing when Wally had first seen him at the Tavern. 

Dick’s eyes widen at the sight of Wally. 

“Where are you going?” tumbles out of Wally’s mouth. 

“Nowhere,” Dick insists. “I thought I’d just—visit you at the bar.”

Wally narrows his eyes. Any other day, he might disregard or miss the way Dick pauses in his words, like he isn’t sure of them. “Bullshit,” he states clearly. “Something’s wrong. Is it—is it the storm?”

“It’s nothing,” Dick says, and it’s never been more obvious that something isn’t true. 

Wally steps forward, and his hand lingers in Dick’s. Dick’s fingers instinctively complete the hold, before forcefully releasing it. “Let’s go upstairs,” he suggests. “Talk this out.”

“No!” Dick walks in the opposite direction of the stairs. “I have to go.” He pivots on his heel and bolts. 

Though Wally had just run here, he follows, a burst of energy guiding his legs. Soon enough, he catches up to Dick. “Wait!” 

“Don’t follow me,” Dick spits out, with no real malice in his voice. Wally focuses on that. What is present in there? “You’ll only get hurt.” His voice wavers.

Anxiety. Worry. Worry for _Wally_ , though Dick is the one running away in the middle of a windstorm. 

“Why?” Wally asks. “I mean, how would I…?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Dick’s blue eyes hold many emotions within them, in hurricane of things he couldn’t place, but they still put him at ease. 

Somehow, Wally knows what he’s saying when he tells Dick, “You’d be surprised at what I’ll believe.”

The winds that thrash Dick’s semi-long hair back and forth slowly cease. Wally never noticed that Dick was tense throughout their interaction, but his shoulders slump as the wind becomes a less noticeable presence. 

Now that his eyes aren’t on the verge of tearing up or drying out—there seems to be no in between—Wally can see the train station in the distance. A train pulls up to it, slowly chugging and chugging and grinding to a halt. A woman, as graceful as the day Wally met her, steps out, wearing a black dress and carries a basket of fine wines and asphodels. 

“Persephone,” he whispers. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Dick,” Wally says, “this is Persephone. Lady Persephone,”—he gestures at her, and she steps forward—“Dick.” 
> 
> Dick holds out a hand, and Selina shakes it. The boy has a firm grip. “It’s a pleasure,” Dick says smoothly in a vaguely raspy voice. 
> 
> She smiles, aware her feline-like fangs gleam sharply in the sunlight. “The same to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy lunar new year to anyone who celebrates! my house right now is super busy, but I will try to upload two chapters today to make up for not doing it yesterday. maybe even three chapters, depending on plans for tomorrow. hope you enjoy!!

Barry doesn’t typically like praising his father, or most of his family, for that matter, but thank the gods that Selina arrives when she does. If she hadn’t, Barry fears the Fates would’ve gotten bored and take Wally and Dick for themselves. 

He’s the first one at the station, in a flurry of lightning and the luck of feathers. He smiles, bright and carefree like she knows him as. As he should be, except he knows what’s coming next. 

“Selina, sister,” he greets, leaning in for a hug. 

“Don’t call me that in front of the mortals,” she teases, accepting the embrace. “And hello to you too, brother.”

“Let’s hope Bruce lets you stay longer this time,” Barry says, knowing full well he won’t.

Selina huffs. “It’ll be a cold day in Hades when that happens, but thank you for the sentiment.”

Barry’s smile grows thin. It’s starting, and it’s too soon, but he can’t stop the course of the story. He knows. He’s tried. 

He’s just going to have to see this through to the end.

* * *

Selina is a busy woman. Down in Hadestown, she raises worker’s spirits with ale and fleeting memories of the world up above. When she’s on top, she likes to spend time with her godson.

“Where is Wally?” she asks, standing on her toes to peer beyond Barry’s tall frame. 

“He had some, um, _issues_ to work out,” Barry says, the barest hint of nervousness shining through. “He should be on his way any moment now.”

“Lady Persephone!” Wally comes running up the stairs, slamming into Selina and wraps her up in his arms. 

She grins, mouthing, “There he is,” to Barry. Then, she hugs back. 

A boy appears, panting, in the same direction Wally came from. His eyes land on her, and he begins to step away. She cocks her head. _Interesting_. 

Selina ruffles Wally’s unruly hair. “Jeez, have you gotten taller, kid?”

Wally’s grin is wide and cheeky. “I dunno, have you gotten any smaller?”

Selina rolls her eyes, large and dramatic, and flicks Wally’s cheek. “Who’s the boy?”

“Huh?”

She reaches down, slides her basket cleanly onto her arm, picks out an asphodel, and sticks it behind Wally’s ear. “The boy. The one lingering by the tracks.”

Wally glances behind him. His posture shifts. Are his “issues” with the boy? Selina will tie the boy down with vines if need be. “That’s Dick,” Wally says, his voice tightening.

Selina arches an eyebrow.

“Nickname for Richard,” Wally clarifies. “He’s—come on, I’ll introduce you.” He grabs Selina’s arm and drags her to the stairs. 

Dick is, to put it simply, a mess. He has a crazed mess of hair, worse than Wally’s—and that’s saying something. On one shoulder is a backpack strap, and upon further observation, it’s the only working one. On the other is a guitar, one that looks like it’s been through some shit.

He inhales sharply when he sees Wally and Selina approaching. He and Wally give each other a series of pointed looks that Selina can’t quite decipher, but she can guess. She’s no Aphrodite, but she has seen a fair amount of lovers’ spats. (Not the least of which the one between her and Bruce, having gone on for so long it could hardly be called a spat anymore.)

“Dick,” Wally says, “this is Persephone. Lady Persephone,”—he gestures at her, and she steps forward—“Dick.” 

Dick holds out a hand, and Selina shakes it. The boy has a firm grip. “It’s a pleasure,” Dick says smoothly in a vaguely raspy voice. 

She smiles, aware her feline-like fangs gleam sharply in the sunlight. “The same to you.”

* * *

Dick and Wally walk home together, not quite talking but not quite arguing. It’s just an awkward silence that makes the distance between them seem a mile wide. 

It’s when Wally locks the door with a hard click that he finally turns to face Dick. “We aren’t done talking,” he says. 

“No,” Dick replies carefully, slowly. “I guess we aren’t.” He sounds absentminded, which he never is. His fingers drum away at his thigh, and Wally knows he isn’t paying much attention. 

“What is it?”

This, at least, seems to startle Dick out of his reverie. “Nothing,” he says, all too harshly to be true. “Nothing.”

“No, I know you,” Wally continues. “Something’s up.”

Dick pauses, and his face goes blank in the way that lets Wally know he’s thinking. It used to be scary, how easily his features went slack, but now it’s endearing. (If this goes wrong, tomorrow he might say it was endearing. He doesn’t want this to go wrong.)

“It’s Persephone,” he says after a long wait. “She showed up and… the wind just…” 

Oh, okay. Okay. Wally could deal with this. It makes sense, newcomers didn’t know the calming effect Persephone had on the environment. Dick is a newcomer. Right, okay.

“She does that,” Wally says gently, trying not to set Dick off. 

Dick’s face screws up. Whoops. He starts murmuring to himself, low enough so that Wally can’t make it out.

“Hey, Dick. _Rob_.” This grabs Dick’s attention and he looks up at Wally, blinking his eyes owlishly. “Whatever’s going on, we can figure it out. Together.”

“How long does Persephone stay?” Dick asks instead of responding. 

Wally’s nose flares in annoyance. “For the spring and summer. Why do you want to know?” _Whoa, tone down the hostility, Walls._

Before he can apologize, Dick says, “No reason,” with a voice as slick and smooth as oil. Shifting and slippery, and hides a great deal of the truth. Not be trusted.

“Stop fucking _denying_ it,” Wally blurts, his ire burning unexpectedly. “I can see that something’s wrong, it’s so obvious. Maybe it could be fixed if you accepted my help instead of just pushing people away all the time!”

“That windstorm could’ve killed you!” Dick snaps. “Aren’t you a little concerned? I show up, the weather goes to hell.”

Wally snorts. “The weather gets worse every year. You’re not special, birdbrain.”

“Has it gotten this bad?” Dick demands. “ _Has it_?”

Wally purses his lips and shakes his head no.

“It’s my fault. I bring it—the wind, the storm, it comes with me. Everywhere I go, the wind blows.” Dick crosses his arms, and it looks like he’s about to head for the door again. Wally moves in front of it. “I’m not safe.”

“What kind of angsty teenaged bullshit are you on?” Wally says, the fire crackling in his low tones. “No, seriously? What kind of person takes on the responsibility for the wind, huh? Sure, your voice can make flowers grow, _big deal_. Gods above, I wonder how your parents dealt with you when you were a kid. Was the weight of the world on your shoulders then, too? Was—” 

Dick’s face falls, and Wally realizes his mistake far too late.

His boyfriend, maybe ex-boyfriend now, stalks up to him, not having dropped any of his things. “Get out of my way,” he says, his voice choked but venomous.

Wally thinks about not letting him go, but steps aside. His heart hammers with guilt, going _beat beat beat_ fast than it’s ever gone before. “Come back soon,” he wants to say. “I’m sorry,” he wants to say, but his words are lost in the ringing of his ears. 

* * *

Dick wants to get out of this town. Shed his past behind, once again, and just flee. What stops him is Persephone. 

Figuratively, Persephone’s being in the town keeps the wind at bay, and life without the wind, even for just six months, is a life he’d never thought he would have. Might as well relish it before he gets a chance to ruin someone else’s life with his curse.

Literally, Persephone is chugging down ale at the bar when he visits to talk to Barry, and her piercing gaze keeps him frozen. (It’s a weird feeling, to be the one on the other end of a stare like that. He doesn’t like it.)

Her ebony dress shifts along with her, and the soft satin reveals the mysteries of the universe, but only for a second. Dick blinks, trying to recover it, but it fades from his mind and he forgets. 

“My, my, what brings the lover boy to the bar?” Persephone says, purring almost. Despite her sly smile, her eyes say anything but.

“I—” Dick would never vent his relationship problems to a goddess, someone so obviously above him, but the thought of it makes him choke on his words. He swallows them. “How’d you know?”

Persephone snorts. “You and your lover, you two kept making eyes at each other. Anyone with eyes could’ve seen it.”

Were they that obvious? Dick shakes his head. Not important. He and Wally are done, because Dick can’t help but hurt him. They’re done.

Somehow, repeating it in his head makes it feel more like a part of him is missing. 

“We’re not lovers anymore,” Dick says forcefully, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to engrain it in his head. _We’re not_. He reopens his eyes and takes a breath.

Persephone arches an eyebrow. “Kid, if you hurt Wally, I will not hesitate to slash your face out.” 

(Is this a bad time to notice that the sharp golden tips on the waistline of Persephone’s dress look an awful lot like claws? Dick thinks it’s a bad time to notice that.)

He stares Persephone in her green eyes. Stupid, stupid green eyes. 

“Don’t worry,” he tells her. “I’m gonna leave when I can. So I can’t hurt him anymore.”

It sounds like perfect logic to him but Persephone snarls suddenly, her wickedly sharp teeth bared. “What makes you think that’ll help?” she asks, her voice tight with anger. 

Dick opens his mouth to answer, but then closes it. Something tells him it won’t help. 

Another mug slides down, foaming. Dick furrows his eyebrows. He doesn’t like drinking, doesn’t like how it makes him vulnerable and exposed to the world.

Persephone grabs the handle and takes a large swig that makes the golden liquid disappear.

She hums, pleased. “Lover boy,” she resumes, “you better get your shit together.”

This isn’t what Persephone’s supposed to be like. Not the hard, world-weary edges or guzzling down alcohol when she’s on top. 

“What happened to _you_?” he asks. 

Persephone’s eyes darken. “None of your business.” Her words suggest maiming if Dick presses on, with plants or claws. 

He takes the hint and slides out of the tavern.

* * *

Barry paces back and forth in the back of his precious tavern, adorably growing more flustered every time he makes a round. Selina knows from experience that it isn’t enough to stave the lightning in his blood, the way he needs to move, but it will help. 

“How bad is it getting with Bruce?” he asks. 

Is this what had gotten her brother in such a tizzy? Selina scoffs. “You know how bad it is,” she counters. “Bruce has lost souls slaving away day and night. Not that it matters in Hadestown. He blinds everyone with false light.”

Barry stops in the middle of the groove he’s creating. He whispers something in horror, and despite Selina’s keen hearing, it sounds like gibberish. Ugh, speedster speak. 

Selina ignores that and flicks some dust off the poofy sleeve of her dress. “Where’s Wally? He’s usually working by now.”

“He’s taking a vacation,” Barry responds, terse. 

“Because of his lover,” Selina says, her lips puckering with distaste. The lover in question has echoes of Bruce—the same look in their eyes when they think they know what’s best, the same shifty stance when they’re about to do something awful. 

Dick wanted to leave, thought it would be best for Wally. Selina could laugh. He didn’t know what’s best for Wally, and Bruce doesn’t know what’s best for her. 

“Selina,” Barry says softly, perhaps realizing her anger. “They’re good for each other, they really are. And they’re important for what’s coming.”

Her brother doesn’t often invoke her true name, not while they could be overheard by mortals. Persephone means chaos bringer, while Selina references the moon—her mother’s attempt at ensuring her child would be calm and gentle. 

She snorts internally. As if. 

“What’s coming,” Selina remarks dryly. “Care to tell me what that is, brother?”

Barry’s mischievous and playful nature had died down throughout the centuries, replaced with an urgency. He’s been foretelling “what is coming” for a good couple years now.

Her brother shakes his head. “You’re too entwined with it. And telling what comes—”

“—has consequences. I remember.”

Barry sighs mournfully and nods. Selina wishes he would just come out with it already. How much could it hurt to know what had been plaguing her brother all this time?

“Fine,” she says, finally. “I’ll give the little lover boy a chance. But he needs to get his head on straight.”

“He will,” Barry replies simply. 

Selina huffed. “Let’s hope so.”

* * *

Wally leans back on Artemis’ couch, head almost hanging off. He starts counting ceiling tiles—he’s at fifty-two right now. 

Artemis growls under her breath in the kitchen, the whistling kettle giving Wally an indicator at what had gotten his best friend in her momentary fuss. 

He messed up. He really messed up. Obviously, Dick had some sort of insecurity about his parents. They were dead. Or gone, like Wally’s. Gods, why didn’t he think about what he said? Dick was on the verge of leaving and now he might be gone. _Gone_.

Wally shudders, tears springing to his eyes. It may only be a month since he’d met him, but a life without Dick is a life hard to imagine.

“Walls,” Artemis calls, her voice hoarse. “I have tea.”

Wally stands up, quickly, and promptly falls over. He picks himself up and sits at the table, where two steaming mugs of tea lay.

Artemis snorts. “That was quick,” she mutters. 

_Was it?_

Wally shakes his head, snapping himself out of the thought spiral. “What can I say? The food—drink—beckons.” To prove his point, he grabs the mug and takes a sip. It’s surprisingly sweet, but vegetally sweet. He takes another sip. 

“The artichoke flower tea,” Artemis says flatly. “My mom’s artichoke flower tea.”

“That’s the one.”

The joke doesn’t erase the concerned etches in Artemis’ face, but it helps. Wally tries to grin. 

Ow. 

He lets the grin drop. 

“What happened?” Artemis asks, taking her own mug. 

“Me and Dick—we had a fight,” Wally responds, head hung low. In the dark liquid, he can almost make out his eyes. “A bad one. I said things, and I—” He sighs loudly. 

“Déjà vu, much?” 

“What?”

Artemis raises one of her eyebrows. She had always been good at making him question his life choices with a single look. “This sounds like your first lover’s squabble, before you guys started dating.”

“It doesn’t—” Wally begins to protest before stopping. “Yeah. It does, doesn’t it?”

Artemis asks, “What did you do then?” but Wally’s mind is already thinking back. 

He apologized, and trusted Dick to do his own thing. He trusted Dick to, in turn, trust Wally when he was ready. 

“You always give the best advice, Artie,” Wally says, smiling for real this time. 

“It’s part of my charm,” Artemis replies, smirking. “Now, seriously. Go find that man, and show him how damn much you love him.”

Wally jumps out of his seat, tipping his head back and chugging the rest of the tea in one go. “Will do!”

Artemis opens her mouth to say something, but Wally leaves her apartment in a gust of wind and papers before she finishes. 

* * *

“La, la la la, la la la…” 

“That’s pretty,” someone comments behind him. “Where’d you get it?”

Dick’s eyes jolt open and he whirls around. A woman stands, with flowing black hair and blue eyes that remind Dick of his own, except her eyes twinkle in the light, her lips etched upwards. She’s vaguely familiar. 

He squints, and he can imagine a top hat atop the cascading hair. This is the traveling magician. 

“It’s mine,” he says. 

The magician tilts her head slightly. “Huh. That’s neat.” She takes a nonexistent invite and sits down next to Dick, her legs crossed. “I’m Zatanna.”

He eyes her. What interest does she have in him? “Dick.”

(When did he start offering his name so freely? When he realized he was here for good, or was it a habit he had formed with Wally, with whom he’d felt more comfortable to be himself?)

Zatanna’s gaze is keen, but not scrutinizing. “So you write songs?” 

“Yeah,” Dick says, “but it’s been going pretty disastrously so far.”

“Make it go astrously, then.”

“What?”

“Astrously,” Zatanna explains. “The opposite of disastrously.”

Dick bites back a grin. He used to do that with words, much to his parents’ chagrin. 

He shrugs. “Dunno, kinda feeling whelmed about all of it.”

Zatanna understands. She _understands_. “Not overwhelmed? You look pretty overwhelmed.”

Dick gives her a Look. “Oh, you know, just meeting the goddess of spring in person, who tells you to repair your relationship or else. It’s whelming.”

“Oof,” Zatanna says in lieu of comfort. “What’s going on in your relationship?” Dick didn’t respond, instead staring intently at his crossed out lyrics. Maybe he could bring some of them back, change the ones that were already there. “Never mind. I’m just a stranger, right? How about this: you play at my show.”

“Your show?” 

“My magic show!” Zatanna says. “I’ll have a pot of dirt. People would absolutely eat up your whole “bring spring back” shtick. Make a flower grow with your magic voice.”

He didn’t even have to think; he frantically shook his head. “No thanks,” he replies, his voice cracking a little. 

Zatanna only hums and shrugs. “Suit yourself. How about a backstage pass?”

Dick wants to say no. He should say no. It’s bad enough that he let himself come here and get attached to Wally. 

But there’s no normal reason to say no. No “I’m busy” or “I’m leaving.” Not yet. And it’s not like he has anything else to do.

So he slowly nods, swallows down the bile that rises in his throat, and says, “Why not?”

* * *

The show is spectacular. 

Even behind the curtain, only able to see Zatanna’s feats through it, he notices the showmanship that goes into her tricks. 

They had a woman like that in the circus. A woman who was all secretive glances and melodramatic proclamations, someone who oozed charisma and used that to her advantage. Someone who used the talents she had to hide the sleight of hand, the quick flicks that only a trained eye spotted. 

It brings him to life under the Big Top, with popcorn and elephants and parents. 

While Zatanna entertains the audience with a card trick, Dick pulls away from the curtain. He blinks away a few tears.

His feet take him around the small trailer in the back, a bed pressed into the corner and a mess everywhere else. Posters litter the wall and floor, and one catches Dick’s attention. 

Most of the posters read “The Fantabulous Zatanna Zatara!” with varying catchphrases that reference witches, logic-defying stunts, and aces up her sleeves. This one, however, says, “The Fantastic Giovanni Zatara, The Mystical Magician!”

Huh. The surnames indicate relations—maybe they were father-daughter. It explains how Zatanna got into the industry, at the very least.

The crowd roars, and light footsteps sound behind him. “That’s my dad,” Zatanna says softly, confirming Dick’s thoughts. He turns around and sees that Zatanna wears a quiet smile. “He was the best.”

_Was._

“I’m sorry,” Dick says, but Zatanna responds with a careless hand gesture.

“It was a while ago. He went out honorably.”

“But it never stops hurting.” It’s not a question, but a statement. Dick’s heart hammers in his chest, the _thump thump thump_ bringing back bloodstained memories. 

“It doesn’t,” Zatanna agrees, “but we have to learn to push past it.” Dick gets the uncomfortable feeling Zatanna knows exactly what she’s doing, and why she invited him to join her. “My advice? Talk to him. He’s not gonna judge you, I promise.”

“It’s not about that,” Dick bites out. “It’s about keeping him safe.”

Zatanna snorts. “It’s about keeping yourself safe. You don’t want to let anyone in, you don’t want to get hurt again.”

“It was my fault then, it’ll be my fault again now!” 

Zatanna meets his eyes, stares into them with her steely blue gaze. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t know that,” Dick protests.

“You know how my dad died?” Zatanna says. “It was a decade ago. I was a rebellious little fourteen year old.” She sucks in a breath, and blows it out just as sharply. “And I was messing with things I shouldn’t have. Stuff with the gods. The Lord of Order.”

Her eyes dart to the ground, then back to Dick’s face. “I was messing around with the Helmet of Fate. I didn’t know what it was, but my dad had told me not to look in his collection of magical artifacts, so I did. And I thought it was cool, so I put it on.” She laughs bitterly. “I guess it just _had_ to be inhabited by the Lord of Order, Nabu, who possessed anyone who put it on. And because I was attuned to the natural flow of magic, he found me a suitable host.”

Dick cocks his head at the mention of magic, and promptly remembers that his singing can make flowers grow. 

“You’re attuned to the natural flow of magic?” he asks instead.

“Genetic,” Zatanna replies. “And no, I don’t use it to cheat in my magic shows. I don’t use it for much, actually. The world is so messed up now that I can’t connect with it easily.”

Dick thinks of Persephone, with her jagged edges, and her connection to the world. _That’s why_ , he realizes but doesn’t voice.

“Anyway,” Zatanna continues, “my dad wasn’t very happy about that. So he—he offered himself up instead. And that’s where he is now. In the helmet, and Nabu just goes around using his body.” Her voice is tightly laced with anger and grief. “I spent so long trying to reverse it. But the world fell out of tune, and I was too wrapped up in him to really be a person. So I stopped. And I got a therapist, and I dealt with it.”

Dick’s therapist would be dead in the amount of time it took to really make a difference.

“Was it my fault?” Zatanna says, hardened.

“What?”

“Was it my fault?” she repeats slowly, placing emphasis on the latter half.

“No!” Dick says. “Of course not.” Zatanna was only a kid, she had no idea what she was doing. 

“Then why is it yours?”

Dick’s eyes widen. So _that’s_ her angle. He opens his mouth to retort, but comparisons shut him up. He and Zatanna were both children. They were both affected by magical conditions out of their control. The effects were both tragically permanent.

“Does a windstorm follow you wherever you go?” he asks, as one last attempt to validate his position. 

“No,” Zatanna admits. “I was wondering what was up with that. That’s definitely a… physical manifestation of grief.” She curses under her breath. “Goddamnit, Harley, stop getting in my head.”

Briefly, Dick wonders who Harley is, but the thought escapes him. _Not important._

“Seriously,” Zatanna continues, “just talk to Wally. He’s not gonna think any less of you.”

Dick pauses. “Are you sure?”

Zatanna raises an eyebrow. “If he does, dump him.”

To his own surprise, Dick barks out a laugh. “Duly noted.”

She nudges him, a smile spreading on her face. “What are you waiting for? Go get your man.”

* * *

In the past millennia, Selina has grown to dislike change.

Ironic, really. Dear old dad renamed her from Kore to Persephone because he didn’t like the changes she had brought about, and Selina never likes comparing herself to her father. 

But, she guesses, throughout all of it, her true name remained the same. The name that connects her to the gentle pull of the natural order. The steadiness that the moon provides her, the night that is littered in shadows, is something she has yet to rid herself of.

And Bruce— _Hades_ , she thinks fiercely, because right now, the man doesn’t deserve his true name—thought it fit to change things. Little by little, the Underworld grows wearier and wearier.

She shakes her head. She will enjoy what time she has up top, whether or not Hades likes it.

“Barry,” she calls, knowing that these mortals have no clue he is Hermes. “Where’s Wally? I miss him.” She pouts, then tilts her head back to take down another glass of moonshine.

“With Dick,” Barry replies, “remember? They had an argument? You said you would trust them?”

Selina closes her eyes and hums as the alcohol buzzes in her brain. It takes a lot of alcohol to sway a goddess, but she has had a lot. “Maybe. I want Wally here, now. I’m waiting for his speech.”

Wally always makes a welcome speech for Selina, though the actual quality of the speech is questionable. She needs that optimism. The kid once told her, “Every second is a gift,” like he was the god and not her, and she tries to live up to his expectations as best she can. 

“Give it time,” Barry says, the man that can travel miles in an instant.

“Half an hour,” Selina grumbles. “Gimme more moonshine… y’know, to make the time pass.”

* * *

The moment Dick walks out of the trailer, a flurry of gold surrounds him and stops. 

It’s Wally.

He narrows his eyes. “When did you learn to do that?” he asks.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Wally exclaims. “Wait, do what?”

Dick’s finger makes circles. “The speedy thing.”

“The— _what_?” Wally holds completely still. Dick realizes that before, Wally was constantly moving, even just slightly. “No, never mind, I just have to tell you this.”

He runs forward, Dick assumes, though what really happens is Wally seemingly teleporting in front of Dick. “I should never have pressured you. You’ll tell me in your own time, and I really, really like you, so…” Wally pauses. “Can this be the part where we kiss?”

Dick snorts, then covers his mouth. He leans in. 

And pulls away. 

He has to do this.

“I want to trust you,” he says instead. “I want to trust you so bad—so much that I think I do trust you, and I’m just afraid of trust.” 

He lingers in the moment, trying to ignore the way this conversation tugged away at his heart.

“Why are you so afraid of trust?” Wally questions softly. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t feel like it.”

Dick’s eyes burn. Why is this so hard? One moment, he’s certain he’s going to tell Wally, then Wally comes in and reassures him like the perfect, untainted person he is. He doesn’t deserve Wally, and his mind thinks over running away again. It wouldn’t be hard, except Wally is now super fast. He would catch up to Dick in a flash. And even if that isn’t what would happen, Dick doesn’t want to start over again.

He inhales and exhales. “When I was nine, my parents died.

“We were… part of a traveling circus. Trapeze artists. And every night, I would feel so _alive_ … My parents taught me how to sing and play in our free time. One time, I played, and the whole circus gathered around to watch. That night, we had the biggest audience I’d ever seen.”

He chuckles bitterly and fiddles with his shirt’s hem. Wally reaches out and clasps his hands instead, listening with rapt attention.

“And it started fine—it started great, actually. But the wind started blowing, and it got into the tent. People were screaming, and my parents were in the middle of their act. The wind thrashed around their wire, and… it snapped.”

Dick closes his eyes and rubs out the tears. _Red_ , there was so much _red_.

Focus.

“I was sent to live with my great uncle, who I never knew. Dude was creepy, but I’ll never know what would actually happen, because six months later, the storm came back and ravaged the town. I was one of maybe fifty survivors. I moved to another town, and it happened again and again and again, each storm quicker than the last.” He opens his eyes and looks into Wally’s green ones, burning with a passion for Dick’s story. “And then I met you.”

“And you didn’t want to get attached because it would just happen again,” Wally deduces. “Dick, I…”

DIck shushes him. “I can leave now if you want me to. For your safety.”

“Why hasn’t it happened yet?” 

“Persephone,” Dick responds. “She’s affecting it, somehow.”

Wally looks like he’s analyzing the situation in his head. Dick knows people, and he knows words, and he knows music, but he doesn’t know things like Wally does. Wally is the type of person who knows the world isn’t sunshine and rainbows, but believes it can be saved, through some extraordinary means. He doesn’t know how Wally will save this one.

“That gives you six months to figure it out,” Wally says, finally. “She’ll be here for about half the year. Together, we can fix this.”

“What if we can’t? How can you be sure?”

Wally’s lips turn upwards. “A hypothesis can only be proven if tested. Therefore, we’ll never know until we test it. Maybe it’ll fail and we’re all doomed, but isn’t it better to try than to never know?”

One glance at Wally’s earnest, hopeful expression and Dick is smitten. 

“Okay,” he hears himself say. “I’ll try.”

He has one hell of a road ahead of himself.

* * *

Wally and Dick swing the doors open within the last ten seconds of Selina’s arbitrary half hour time limit. They hold hands, and they look content, so though Selina is no expert in the matters of the heart, she’s pretty sure they made up.

Young love is so easy, so undisturbed.

Dick visibly tenses near her, and she can’t help but smirk. Wally, however, bounds right up to her. “Sorry I’m late, Lady Persephone!” he chirps, dragging Dick along for the ride.

“It’s fine, kid,” Selina replies coolly. 

“Hey!” one of the townspeople shouts. Her name is… Raquel, Selina thinks. “Lady Persephone! Come join us!” Raquel, obviously addled by alcohol—Selina can’t blame her; alcohol just washes your worries away, like worries of calling out to a goddess who could smite her in an instant—is laughing as she is being spun around by another townswoman. 

She stands from her chair and brushes off her dress. The long golden spikes, almost claws, need to be pristine. “Why not?” she says, shrugging.

She lets herself get captured in the beat the band sets, the lively jazz nothing and everything in comparison to Olympian choirs. She slinks past many people and sometimes slips a flower in their pocket, sometimes a piece of gold. She’s always had a talent for reaching places no one else could, but instead of being a petty mortal thief, she gives. Something about the way she can feel their appreciation, their awe makes it all worth it.

Besides, a goddess cannot want for anything—but a loving husband, it seems.

She’s thinking about him again. She has to stop. 

She eyes the happy couple at the bar. Wally is grinning and clapping from behind it, and Dick sits on a chair, idly strumming his guitar. 

Selina cups her mouth and yells, “Lover boy!” Dick looks up. She gestures for him to join her.

His entire air changes. His eyes are longing, but his frown in unwilling. 

There’s a crack in the ground right where Dick is sitting. She focuses on it, and a vine slithers out of the crack to tickle Dick’s ankle. As expected, he jumps up. 

_Mortals_.

Then, he glances at Selina and seems to put the puzzle pieces together. “Come on!” she calls, this time more forcefully.

He complies, and the music changes him. As he walks, he grows more confident in his footing and just glides across the floor. 

By the time he’s at the center, he owns everybody’s attention.

At first, Dick dances like the rest, but over time, his moves evolve to reflect his own tastes. His own tastes that apparently involve stretching beyond what humans think are possible and performing acrobatic feats Selina has never seen. The dance floor is his oyster. 

Even Wally, from afar, watches his lover, and might as well be hit by one of Cupid’s arrows with how he is acting. 

The tavern erupts into applause once Dick halts, noticing how everyone’s eyes are on him.

Selina claps him on the back. “Knew you had it in you, lover boy.”

Panting, he holds out a fist to her. She bumps it.

Maybe he isn’t so bad after all. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I need to finish the song!”
> 
> “You need to spend time with your damn husband!” Wally’s face twists. “You know, the person you’re trying to save?”
> 
> Dick stands still, and lets go of Wally’s hand. “I need to finish the song.”

Barry hears their whisperings, he knows what time limit they’ve set.

Six months. Not enough time, not in any versions that have transpired. Selina is due home early, this cycle, because of Bruce’s possessiveness, which is even less time.

It happens every time, but his heart still breaks in two every time they fail.

He just hopes this is the one that turns out well.

* * *

In the first month, Dick doesn’t write. Sure, he writes some, but most of it is spent with Wally. So in love with each other, neither of them sense the impending doom. 

(“I love you, Wally West,” Dick whispers, his hand draped over Wally’s while they are in bed.

Wally’s eyes widen minutely, then grins and adds, “And I love you, you dick.”

Dick smacks him.)

In the second month, Selina pesters them about marriage. Within two months, she had grown rather attached to Dick, seeing a mirror in how he draws his strength from Wally’s optimism and how the world has broken him. Dick and Wally end up marrying each other.

(“You may now kiss the groom,” Barry announces, his cheeks aching from all the smiling he’s done. 

Dick and Wally pull each other into a fierce embrace and chastely kiss. “You’re mine forever,” Dick says ironically, though he doesn’t know it.

“And you can never leave me,” Wally finishes, wiping a stray strand of hair out of Dick’s face. “We really need to get you a haircut, though.”)

In the third month, Dick sits down and tries to write, but on the high of officially having Wally be his husband and being safe for the first time in fifteen years, he doodles other lyrics instead.

( _I knew you before we met, but I didn’t even know you yet. All I know’s you’re someone that I’ve always known._

“All I know’s you’re someone that I’ve always known,” Wally reads. Dick snaps the notebook shut. “Aw, you love me? That’s embarrassing.”

“How do you know I’m not talking about Zee or Artemis?” he replies hotly.

Wally plants a kiss on Dick’s lips. “Because you let me do that,” he hums.)

In the fourth month, Dick begins to sense the urgency. Wally doesn’t. Dick stays holed up in his room, trying to force himself to write. Selina notices Dick’s absence, and tries to steer Wally away from Dick before he becomes another Bruce.

(“I know these kinds of men, Wally,” Selina says sadly. “They leave you alone in the end.”

“He’s not going to leave me!” Wally snaps. “Dick loves me, and he promised. He _promised_.”

“Promises don’t always come true.”)

In the fifth month, Dick is dragged out by Wally. He can’t appreciate the flowers and the trees when all he hears is the hammering of his chest. 

(“I need to finish the song!”

“You need to spend time with your damn husband!” Wally’s face twists. “You know, the person you’re trying to save?”

Dick stands still, and lets go of Wally’s hand. “I need to finish the song.”)

At the beginning of the sixth month, Selina leaves.

* * *

Bruce is standing on the goddamned platform, and for a moment, all Selina can see is flames.

“You’re _early_ ,” she mocks, like they haven’t done this song and dance before. The first time she hissed the words, furious. Now she knows better.

Bruce quirks an eyebrow. “I missed you,” he states, like it gives him a reason to plunge the world up top into an early winter. “Do you have your things?”

“ _No_ ,” Selina sarcastically remarks, “because had no idea you were coming.”

“Wait, what’s going on?”

There stands Dick and Wally, Dick with questioning eyes.

She ignores Bruce’s confused reaction behind her. “I’m going,” she says flatly. “Buh-bye. Have fun in the winter.”

She can’t look at their faces, so she steps on the train.

* * *

The storm is back, and it’s worse than ever. Dick _hates_ this. Those six months had him growing used to relaxation, but they’ll die before Persephone can come back.

He has to finish the song. It’s the only thing that’ll stop his new life, his husband and his friends, from dying like his parents did.

* * *

“Dick?” Wally calls, sluggish. 

No answer. Typical.

He rummages through the cupboards and devours a whole package of crackers. If Dick was in his right mind, he’d scold Wally for being so reckless, but he isn’t, so Wally can eat what he wants.

Logically, Wally knows that the speed or whatever makes his body need more energy. His bodily functions are faster than ever before, but he’s always hungry. And sure, the town never had much food before, but he was always partly satisfied. Now, he needs to eat and eat and eat until he drives the town into bankruptcy. 

Maybe if the song were finished, it wouldn’t be like this. Wally might be able to have his cake and eat it too—having the wonderful, exhilarating speed and also not have chronic pain. 

Dick croaks out a few notes; he’s been at this all night. 

A song to fix what’s wrong, he and Dick promised each other. To take what’s broken and make it whole. 

“Dick!” he tries again.

Nothing. Again.

“We need food,” he murmurs, mentally jotting it down. “We need firewood.” For when the cold truly set in, when the windstorm would ravage everywhere. For when the chill seeped into their bones, and they couldn’t move. Dick can’t play the damn song if it’s cold.

Wally twists the doorknob. Their room is locked.

That night, he sleeps fitfully on the couch.

* * *

Artemis and Zatanna are leaving. _Artemis and Zatanna are leaving._

They look to Dick with sorry eyes. “It’s not safe for us,” they say.

“You didn’t finish your song in time,” Dick hears.

After a round of hugs, Artemis and Zatanna depart and never come back.

* * *

Dick doesn’t do anything but work. Wally tries sliding food under the door for him, but he doesn’t know if Dick eats it. For all he knows, Dick could be dead.

The Tavern closes down because it’s too dangerous to even go that far these days, and because no one has anymore money to spend on things that aren’t basic necessities. 

He moans on the couch, the ache in his stomach growing with every passing day. 

Someone appears behind him. Wally can’t look up.

“The messenger’s heir,” someone with a really fucking deep voice muses. “My wife talks about you.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Wally asks, his voice strained. 

The man’s face appears above him, his lips forming a curling smirk. “Hades. And I can’t stay long.”

The god of death. Wally swallows. “What do you want?”

“To help you,” the god shortly replies. “I heard your husband’s a poet, and he’s penniless.”

_...Fair._

“I don’t think being dead will help—”

“You’ll have a means of income,” Hades lists, “a shelter and food provided. And no one feels pain down in Hadestown,”—Wally snorts, because a _god_ named a town after themselves? And he’d thought Aphrodite would be the narcissist—“so you won’t experience the side effects of your condition.”

“My condition?” _He knows?_

“Oh?” Hades pretend to look surprised. Really, a shitty performance. “You didn’t know? After spending so much time around Hermes, the gods have granted you a gift. The gift of speed.”

Wally doesn’t know how he comes to the realization, but he suddenly knows that Barry is Hermes. The feathers thing, the inexplicable disappearances—they make more sense now. 

A wave of pain hits him as soon as he’s about to tell Hades to fuck off. Gods, what a life that would be. No storms, no pain. Maybe he could just… lie down forever. 

Hades presses something small into his hand.

“What’s this?”

Hades gives him a disinterested glance, a “Shouldn’t you know this?” glance. “Your ticket.”

He has a fucking ticket to the Underworld. His life was already crazy.

A traitorous voice in his head whispers, “You’ve got no one else left but the poet who abandoned you. What’s the harm?”

Wally cries out this time as he has another hunger pain. He read about this in school. When you starve, your body will eventually resort to cannibalizing itself to create the glucose or amino acids or whatever it needs for brain function, after it eats up your stored fat for extra energy. It’s horrifying, though he found it fascinating back then. 

He just wants the pain to _stop_. He wants someone next to him to distract him with their charming smile and snide remarks and delicious home food. 

“I’m going,” he announces.

Hades’ puts on a not-quite-smile, where the action is there but the feeling isn’t. “I knew you’d come around. Come with me. Hold onto that ticket.”

As Wally stands up, he grabs a stray notepad (Dick bought dozens, just in case) and writes, _I’m sorry. I’m gone._

What Hades has waiting for him is a snake. When the snake bites his ankle, Wally’s eyes flutter shut and he hopes he’ll stay like that for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhhh sorry about this chapter being so short, but it's necessary. end of act i, guys! just a whole 'nother act to go.
> 
> (yes, I know that in the musical, wait for me i and why we build the wall are the end of act i, but I kinda merged those with act ii, and I think this is a good end of act i moment.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick stares at the map, and thinks of how to prepare for this journey.
> 
> _Wait for me, Walls. I'm coming._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so posting a chapter a day is a lot harder than it seems

It’s too late to stop it now, isn’t it?

Barry sighs.

He can still try.

* * *

Dick’s eyes flutter open, though not to sunlight. Clouds cover the sun too damn often.

Someone’s knocking the front door. Where’s Wally? Did Wally go out to get something? What if he’s half-dead?

Stirred by these thoughts, Dick leaps out of bed and runs for the door.

It’s not Wally. It’s Barry.

Barry is quiet and tense, never a good combination. “I trust you’ve heard the news?” His tone is solemn.

“What news?” Dick asks. “Where’s Wally?”

“Wally went down to Hadestown,” Barry says. “The new Underworld.”

“He’s dead?”

“No,” Barry says, “he chose to go.”

Oh, gods. No. 

“No,” he says, echoing his thoughts. He spots a new notepad, opened with four words written on them. While reading it, his heart falls down, down, down. It’s my fault.

“If he chose to go, can I get him back?” he demands.

Barry hesitates. “There’s a way, but I can’t say.”

“ _Tell me_ ,” he says, a helpless sob escaping his lips. “I need to get him back. I have to.”

“Only if you’re up to it,” Barry warns. He unclips a piece of paper from his pocket. Unfurling it reveals a dark map. “Here’s your way there.”

“Thank you,” Dick says honestly. He stares at map, and thinks of how to prepare for this journey.

_Wait for me, Walls. I’m coming._

* * *

Wally wakes up in an office. He only knows it’s an office because one of the Tavern’s storage rooms used to be one before Barry took over. 

Hades sits on the other end of the table. With a start, Wally remembers everything that happened, and he waits. _One, two_. No pain.

“It was real,” he says, mostly to himself.

“Yes, it was,” Hades agrees. “And before you can start your new position, you must sign this contract.”

The contract is so long it spills off the table, every word in fine print—that is to say tiny, _tiny_ print. Wally grabs the end of it and swirls his name in cursive, easy as that. Another two beats, and nothing feels different. 

Wally, out of his hunger induced deliria, can finally identify the way Hades smiles. It’s a shark’s smile as its prey swims straight into its mouth, unaware.

But no pain is no pain. 

“You are dismissed,” Hades says, and almost mechanically, Wally walks away. His feet know where to go.

_I have work_ , Wally thinks to himself. _I have shelter, and I have food. This is good for me_.

Wally has always trusted his gut, but his gut demanded sustenance. Logically, this is the right decision.

His gut, now eternally fed, doesn’t think so.

* * *

Dick’s steps echo in the cavern’s dead silence. Every rustle, every water dropping, makes him jump higher than he should, but he’s never been in a place this quiet. 

His heart hammers against his chest. He wonders if the shadows that peer at him can hear it, if the sound of life draws them to him like a moth to a flame. 

_You can’t do this_ , a voice whispers in his head. _Who are you, but a mere mortal trying to combat the forces of nature? Someone who’s trying to get to the Underworld without dying? Alone? That isn’t the way the world works, boy._

His breath stutters. He stops in his tracks. Has anyone attempted this before? Is he the first?

The shadows loom, and the flickering light of his lamp shrinks. 

What is he doing here?

The plonk of water droplets makes him scramble for something in his pack, something on his belt. His fingers close in on his leather-bound notebook, now overwrought with pen marks. 

Dick holds the lamp up and flips through the pages shakily. He flinches at the reminder of his misdeeds, trying to make the world a safer place for Wally, but in the process driving Wally away. 

He unhooks his guitar from his shoulder and lets his fingers find the familiar chords. “Wait for me,” he sings. This isn’t the old song of Hades and Persephone, tainted by Hades’ greed and Persephone’s grief—this is a new song, one of Wally and Dick and being there for your lover. “I’m coming. Wait, I’m… coming with you. Wait for me—I’m coming too, I’m coming too.”

If only Wally had heard this before he left.

His new song segues into the song he knows, the one that pervades his brain at all moments of the day. “La, la la la, la la la…” His voice comes back to him in a moment, giving it a haunting quality. 

This isn’t Hades and Persephone’s song. This is his, these are his notes and his words and his story. This isn’t love gone by, this is love reignited. 

“La, la la la, la la la!” This time, he is louder, and the echo is more prominent. 

Then, he hears more repetitions of his song, except they aren’t echoes. 

He pours some precious gasoline into his lamp, and the flame roars. The shadows dance and gallivant on the cavern’s walls, singing his song back to him.

Dick grins. “La, la la la, la la la…”

Again, it reverberates and comes back. And comes back and comes back and comes back. The shadows that were once cold and callous and are now warm and inviting. They encourage him to continue, to keep going, to remember what he came for. 

He stands, still playing a simple melody. “La, la la la la la!” He leaves the last, hopeful note unsung, keeping a place for it to be filled. This story isn’t finished yet.

* * *

Bruce walks, purpose in his stride. He has another worker—the mining will become more efficient. The speedy one seemed like he would be good for that. 

This will be good for the miners, having a little change. Not much, Bruce makes sure of that, but a little. They needed another reminder of what they were to do.

The platform makes the workers look like miniature dolls, standing at attention. It’s not hard to find Hermes’ heir, the one with lightning’s gift, as he is hopping around, the malfunctioning doll amongst perfect toy soldiers. That will get remedied soon. 

“Why,” Bruce calls, “do we build the wall?”

The workers recite, “We build the wall to keep us free—that’s why we build the wall!”

Hermes’ heir is confused, ceasing his zipping about but cocking his head and trying to mouth the words with the workers.

“How does the wall keep us free?” Bruce shoots back. 

“The wall keeps out the enemy!” the workers respond. “And we build the wall to keep us free—that’s why we build the wall!”

The heir looks like he is beginning to catch on, able to shout the end. Good. He’s learning.

“Who do we call the enemy?”

“The enemy is poverty!”

And so on so forth. The repetition creates a groove in their minds for Bruce’s rhetoric to fill, and lets them slave away at the stone. It’s ingenious, if you ask Bruce. If you ask his wife…

His wife doesn’t believe in what he’s doing, and he’ll leave it at that. Nothing can please her, Bruce has come to realize. Like the cat that chases invaluable objects, she lets them go when she grows bored.

“What do we have that they have not?” is his final question. “What do they want that we have got?”

And, dutifully, the workers yell, “We have a wall to work upon! We have work and they have none.”

Bruce smiles when he notices that the heir finally joins in, knowing the answer. He’ll make a good worker yet.

Claws dig into his shoulder and before Bruce turns around, he knows who it is.

“Persephone,” he says amiably, the workers still focusing on him.

“ _Hades_.” Bruce would say he’s never heard such visceral hate from Selina before, but sadly, she says it that way all the time. Maybe if the lights were a little brighter, or the coal pits a little warmer.

“Yes?”

Selina maneuvers herself so she’s by his side, peering out into the crowd. “Is that Wally?” she hisses. 

Didn’t she like the little lightning quick boy? “Yes,” Bruce replies, his tone holding no inflection. Better that than Selina detecting something she didn’t like.

“Why is he here?”

“He was dying,” Bruce snaps. He’s not wrong—with that metabolism and the way the storm was closing in, the boy would’ve been dead within days. He gave the boy an opportunity to thrive and he took it; nothing wrong with that. He’s given numerous children second chances, and Selina didn’t give a damn about them.

(Selina nowadays never pays attention to what Bruce does. Her anger is almost refreshing.)

Selina narrows her eyes in suspicion, then rolls them and marches out. 

Bruce turns back to the workers. “Return to your stations,” he commands. The boy swiftly copies what all the others are doing, but Bruce can see the impatience at the rate everyone else is mining at. That’s another thing he’ll have to tweak later.

He has another worker. He brought Selina’s favorite mortal down under. This should be a victory.

It’s a victory.

(Selina’s disapproving glare imprints itself in his mind.)

* * *

Dick turns another corner. He’s another step closer to the Underworld, to what Barry called Hadestown.

He’s another step closer to Wally.

* * *

Selina surveys the crowd. Not bad, not everyone is mindlessly buzzing around. She finishes her mug in one large swig.

She walks onto stage, a sway in her steps and a sly grin pulling at her lips. For performances, she likes to wear a skintight catsuit. Really chases away any bouts of anxiety that come along. In another life, the catsuit could be another skin.

Her audience is silent, apart from a few half-hearted whistles and all eyes on her. It’s fine, this is always a tough crowd. She’s gotta stitch them back together when they start disappearing, after all. 

Selina purses her lips. They aren’t supposed to lose the world up above this soon. The work they do in Hadestown, though, that’d do it to them. 

She spots fiery red hair tucking into the makeshift bar, sticking out like a sore thumb. Wally is wide-eyed, but the novelty will wear off fast.

Adjusting her microphone, Selina sings. Her voice is low and smooth, crooning about life and stars and nature. At her favorite part, she hears a couple whoops, the loudest from Wally. 

“I didn’t know you could sing like that,” Wally raves, but even his shining green eyes are beginning to dull. 

Selina is a lone wolf, always has been. She thought that had changed with her marriage to Bruce, she thought he understood and would stay by her side, but she guesses she’ll lose even that connection eventually. 

The lone wolf is here to stay.

* * *

In the end, he can only work for so long with the clang of pickaxes until he gets frustrated.

“I’m Wall—I’m Wally,” he announces, tripping over his words, but everyone keeps mining away. “Hello? Can you guys hear me?”

No answer. He huffs. “Hello?”

_They can hear you_ , a voice whispers. He doesn’t know where it comes from, just that it doesn’t belong. His hands fly to his forehead before realizing it wouldn’t work. _But they won’t speak. It’s easier that way._

“What?” he asks, mostly to himself. He’s probably going crazy. He doesn’t know how anyone does it here, what with all the tedious repetition. 

He wonders if everyone here had to sign contracts as well. He wonders if Hades personally approached all of them or if they just died the normal way. He wonders if all of them had a life, had a… a… 

_Your eyes will look like that someday_ , the voice warns, and he gets it. 

Panic surges in his chest, and he has to _move move move_ , he has to go.

_Go where?_

No. _No_. 

This is the life he signed away on that contract. This is the life he was willing to risk something for, but he can’t remember. He has to remember; it’s the only way he’ll break free, the only way he can go back to—

_Who?_

It’s escaping him with every passing breath. Maybe if he could get one of them to talk to him, maybe if he introduced himself to someone, it would cause a ripple effect. 

He opens his mouth to try again. “I’m—”

He doesn’t know.

* * *

Dick sees something different, something that’s not the usual dank cave walls. Something that’s not hissing flame or leaping shadow. He runs towards it, the pitter-patter of his feet matching the rhythm in his head.

It’s a wall. It’s a massive wall, one the reaches higher than Dick can see. 

He feels the wall. It’s almost completely smooth, nothing he can stick his hands and feet in. 

No. He can’t have gone this far only to quit when he’s so close. 

He can’t climb, and he doesn’t think insane acrobatics is going to get him anywhere. Dick only has one skill left to draw upon. It doesn’t sound useful, but what the hell, it’s done enough weird stuff. 

Dick strums the guitar gently and sings his song of love, his song of perseverance, his song of hope. He’s going to get in, no matter what. Hopefully the wall has some sort of hellish watchguard who’s listening right now.

A pebble falls to the ground. Then another, and another.

He squints. Is this the stone’s version of weeping?

_I’ve seen weirder things_ , he chants to himself mentally. _I’ve seen weirder things_. To be fair, not much else can top crying rocks. 

The pebbles turn into stones that turns into boulders and the wall caves in enough so that Dick can walk through. He makes sure to stop in the middle of the walkway and murmur, “Thank you.” The wall is sentient, what about it.

The moment he steps inside, his jaw drops. Hadestown is definitely an appropriate name for it, because it screams city more than it scream Underworld. Dick has been to one of these cities, with skylines of smoke and charred sidewalks and perpetually gray weather, but what about the fields full of asphodel? What happened to gentle afterlives?

He is so glad he isn’t dead.

_Fuck_.

Finding Wally in this mess is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack.

* * *

His work is done for the day, but instead of satisfied, he feels empty.

If he tries, really tries, he can remember a shadow of a person. Someone who was tense, but sweet. He thinks he was in love.

Nothing ails him now. No hunger, no cold, no pain. He doesn’t feel like a real person. He probably isn’t, anymore. 

When he arrives at the bar, Lady Persephone looks at him like he was someone she knew. He ducks his head.

The only memory that’s crystal clear to him is this: he is squeezing his ticket tight and Hades waits. His lover is just a few steps away, but they are unreachable. He says he’ll go, and makes the biggest mistake of what turns out to be a short life.

He hopes his lover will come for him, come to drag him home, but it seems impossible for a reason he cannot fathom. 

Hoping is of no use; he has already made his fatal error.

* * *

The first people Dick passes are the people working on the wall. The sudden gap has people scrambling to fill the holes. 

“Hey,” he calls. “Hello?”

None of the people hear him. Dick can barely hear himself in this hellhole, so he walks up to one of them and pokes at their shoulder. 

The man turns around, and there is something blank about him that unsettles Dick. There had to have been life here, once—a myriad of scars and a streak of white hair on an otherwise younger man than himself creates enough questions—but it drains. Dick shivers.

“Do you know Wally West?” he asks anyways, because he’s not about to go searching without any help.

The man’s brows furrow, and he shakes his head slowly. “You aren’t new,” he croaks, “but you haven’t been here before.”

Huh, so they’re more observant than they seem. 

“I came that way,” Dick says, jabbing a finger at the gap being covered up.

The man shakes his head. “That’s impossible,” Dick thinks he’s mouthing, but he’s never been the best lip reader. He turns back to his work, sealing the wall with another layer of gray concrete. 

Dick next tries to see if the city operates through some sort of grid system, but with no street designations, he ends up in a factory where workers oversee the making of concrete. Two girls stand side by side, one blonde and the other black-haired, so when one swivels around, so does the other.

“Um,” he says, eloquently, like the poet he is. 

The blonde nudges the brunette, and they resume their work. 

He scans the factory. Wally isn’t here either. 

On his quest, he runs into other people who might’ve been interesting had they been alive, including a dark-skinned boy who is clearly new as his fingers fumble with the metalworking, a boy that was more tired than anyone as he maintains wires, and a blue-haired girl who works with sharpness in her movements.

Finally, he reaches the mines. They are on the outskirts of the city, and he’s certain he’s seen too many factories today.

To his dismay, Dick continues to find rows of drones rather than people, sweat and grime and dust not seeming to bother them as they mined away at the rock. He’s about to retreat and try to find another factory when he sees brilliantly bright hair, and he runs.

Wally is also slaving away at the rock.

Dick spins him around, and yup, there’s the glassy eyes. He trembles. It’s his fault, and now the damage is done. His own eyes water, but Dick doesn’t dare let go.

“You came…?” 

He wipes away at his eyes, and Wally is standing there with his eyes clear but disbelieving. “Wally!”

“Dick!” 

Dick moves forward to kiss Wally. They tilt their heads as their lips meet, and a fire burns in Dick’s chest—in the good way. 

“You came,” Wally repeats once they’re finished. “Why—how are you here? Did you—?”

“No,” Dick denies instantly. “No, I walked. And the wall, the stupidly big one—I sang and it let me in! Just like that!”

“I _told_ you that you could make the rivers give us wedding bands,” Wally teases. “But _no_ , that’s just impossible.”

Dick elbows him, and Wally laughs. “Come on, idiot. Let’s go home.”

“I don’t think so,” a gravelly voice says. Dick whirls around, Wally going ramrod stiff beside him. A man emerges from the shadows, pristine black suit looking out of place among the musty work clothes.

Dick tenses. “Who the fuck are you to tell us that?” 

Wally swallows audibly. “That’s…”

“Hades.”

Oh, shit.

“He made a mistake, okay?” Dick tries his best to keep his voice level. He doesn’t want to piss a god off more than he probably already has. “And… and so did I. I’m here to fix that. I’m here to take him home.”

Wally’s hand grabs his, trembling. “You don’t understand, Dick, I—I can’t.”

“Why not? I promise, I’ll never neglect you again. _You’re_ my song, Walls.” Dick makes sure Wally is looking at him. There’s nothing that can make up for what he had done, but maybe this will help. “I wrote a song. For us. It helped me get here.”

Dick squeezes Wally’s hand, and Wally’s eyes are longing. “I can’t—I screwed up. I royally fucked myself over, I…”

“Tell him,” Hades urges with a forcefulness Dick never wants to face, ever.

“I signed a contract,” Wally whispers. “I’m never gonna see the light of day again.”

“He belongs to me, now,” Hades finishes. “You should run up to the surface, boy. Before you join him.”

Dick moves to stand in between Hades and Wally. “I’m not going without him.”

Hades arches a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “And who are you to tell me that?”

“What’s going on?” a silky voice commands. Someone marches up to Hades, arms crossed—it’s Persephone. 

The two lovers—or ex-lovers, Dick guesses—exchange a terse glance. “Why is _he_ here?” Persephone asks, pointing at Dick. “You needed someone to have a shitty husbands club with?”

He winces. Like, he deserves it, but it stings all the same.

Hades looks vaguely amused, if he is even allowed to call a god that. “I had nothing to do with it,” he assures Persephone. “He came on his own. For Hermes’ boy.”

“Wally has a name, you know,” Dick butts in. 

He’s ignored. Typical. 

Persephone turns to stare at him, and her hardened eyes soften. Dick didn’t see her much in the last couple months, but the last time they talked, it hadn’t gone well. This feels like forgiveness. (He doesn’t dare hope it actually is, but his heart does anyways.)

“Then why aren’t they gone?”

“You know the rules, Persephone. The boy signed the contract. The boy will stay.”

Persephone practically vibrates in her anger. She pivots on her heel and stalks away. Dick thinks she knows she won’t win this fight. He doesn’t think she’s won any fights for a while. 

“I’m still only leaving with Wally,” Dick informs the god. 

Wally remains put. 

“Come _on_ , Wally,” Dick grits out, trying to pull him away.

Hades is smirking, the smug bastard. “The speedster won’t be moving anytime soon,” he tells Dick. 

This is unfair. Dick is a mortal playing in a god’s game, and he can’t stand it. His chin held high, he declares, “I’m not gonna leave.”

Hades makes a hand motion. The workers turn around from their rhythmic mining, drop their pickaxes, and hold out their fists. In creepily coordinated formation, they walk towards Dick.

Wally’s face is terrified, but he won’t move. He can’t.

Dick runs.

* * *

Bruce has to admit, the boy’s lover is tenacious. He fights and he snarls, but all out of a devotion to the boy. He remembers when he was once like that.

Despite the courageous efforts, however, the lover is getting beaten up. He doubts the lover will be able to crawl his way out of Hadestown at this rate. No matter. There are places for him to work. 

The lover falls. The bruise on his eye is swelling, his lip is split, and he has multiple cuts, and yet, he’s up again, heaving and stumbling. Bruce almost wants to tell the lover to give up.

He has taken in many different people over the years into Hadestown. Most were natural deaths, predetermined by Fate, but some, he chose on his own. Hermes’ boy is far from the first.

But in all this time, no one has come into Hadestown fighting tooth and nail and really wanting to be there, not coerced by hunger pangs or poverty or absent parents. Maybe the lover came for his other half, but he didn’t give up the moment he entered the gates. He wouldn’t become an empty shell of who he was, because he hadn’t died. His soul hasn’t retired.

Bruce hasn’t seen someone like that in a long time, him and Selina included. 

He sits back and watches the boy attempt to fight off the mass.

* * *

Dick is _not_ going to give up. They can’t kill him, because then he’ll come right back here—and what can they do to stop him then? Kill him a second time? He doesn’t think so.

A fist lands into his face. _Dying would be kinda counterproductive to bringing Wally back with me to the living world_ , he thinks, unhelpfully. He hisses and his hand flies to where another mark has formed.

A kick to his gut. He doubles over. Someone is trying to tackle him from the left; he sidesteps clumsily, bringing shame to the Grayson name.

Nevertheless, he can’t give up. He’s going to keep fighting, damn the papers and Hades’ wack undead corporation and the people that are not—they are _not_ —going to kill him. He tried to give up before, and that landed him in this mess. He’s not making the same mistake twice.

It would’ve been nice to invite Zatanna and Artemis with him, though. He has no idea where they are now, but he is sure they're happy, not dragged into his mess where he gets beaten up on a god's whim. Still, maybe here Zatanna could tap into her latent magic, and Artemis looks like the type to take boxing or wrestling in school. 

He’s not. He has no clue how to fight. His family was a family of trapeze artists, not acrobat warriors or whatever. He’s still trying like hell though.

Another hit stings, and it reminds him of one of the people he offered services for in return for shelter. Long story short, you never really know a person until you know them drunk. 

_Nothing changes._ Three shadows loom over him, and their presence is familiar. It’s the voice in his head that tells him to flee when the going gets rough; it’s the one that tells him that working on his song isn’t worth the trouble. 

Dick lifts his head and is immediately knocked down by a swift hand to his neck. He chokes a little. 

_Why?_ the voice—voices, he is now realizing—sneer. _You’re bound to lose. Fate dictates it as so. Why waste your precious breath on this boy? Nothing changes anyhow._

A bead of sweat rolls off his cheek and stains the dirt. Another drop joins it, this time a wet, hot tear.

Why the _fuck_ does the universe have to be set against him? What has he done? 

_Everywhere I go, destruction follows._

The statement, the one he knows intimately, blurs and warps until it is an accusing echo.

_Everywhere you go, destruction follows._

_Everywhere you go, people get hurt._

_It’s you. You’re the common link._

“If it’s true what they say,” he murmurs to himself, blinking away the furious sting of tears. “That it’s too late, that Wally’s gone? What do I do now?”

_Why would the world beat us down? Is it meant for hurt and betrayal? Do things ever change?_

He reaches for his guitar. It’s not strapped to his back.

He spots it, just beyond reach at the edge of the mob. Dick makes a feeble attempt to crawl, before he pants and gives way. “If it’s true what they say,” he laments, making it a song now because apparently that’s what he does, “I’ll be on my way.”

He does not like that thought.

“But who’s for them to say what the truth is anyway?” he continues. What is a contract but a piece of paper that is arbitrarily given meaning? Why does something with Wally’s distressed signature dictate his future? 

The crowd separates into their different people and stir. It’s kinda weird; they moved as one before now, and they didn’t look like they felt anything, but not getting beaten up is a good sign. Dick keeps singing.

“And the ones who tell the lies…” The crowd sways. “Are the solemnest to swear. And the ones who load the dice… always say the toss is fair.”

With the crowd less of a threat, he manages to prop himself up against the rock wall. “And the ones who deal the cards…” 

“The ones who deal the cards,” the crowd echoes. 

“Are the ones who take the tricks, with their hands over their heart—while we play the game they fix!” 

Dick doesn’t have his guitar. He’s not singing for the seasons, nor for a wall to crumble and let him pass. He’s not singing for courage. 

He pumps a fist in the air. “And the ones who speak the words!”

“Speak the words!” 

“Always say it is the last. And no answer will be heard to the question no one asks.” He lifts his chin, tries not to show the pain, and carries on. He’s not singing anymore, he’s rallying and chanting and just trying his damn best to be heard. “So I’m asking if it’s true—I’m asking me, and you, and you, and you!” 

He makes eye contact with as many people as possible. The commotion is starting to draw in other workers. “Our answer matters more than anything they say.” Their eyes are on him. He doesn’t know the last time he had a crowd this large to listen. “I believe if there is still a will then there is still a way.”

Wally breaks out of the frozen state Hades had cast over him and runs up to Dick in a blaze of lightning. Dick smiles at him. Without him, this wouldn’t be possible. 

“I believe in us together,” he says emphatically, “more than anyone alone.” He grabs Wally’s hand. “I believe that we are stronger than they know.”

“We are stronger!” the crowd yells.

“We are many!” Dick shouts. “They are few! And it’s not for the few to tell the many what is true. So tell me: is it true what they say?”

The crowd is silent, for a moment, but then the man with the white streak of hair calls out a “No!” and everyone follows. 

“You really are a poet,” Wally mutters.

Dick quickly pecks Wally on the cheek. “Only to demolish the corrupt system Hades had in place. And for my husband. You know, the one that gave me hope? So I could give it to everyone else?”

Wally flicks his ear. It hurts more than it should, but then again, Dick probably has seventeen different bruises on his ear alone right now. “You’re a sap.”

“You’re worse.”

* * *

Selina slinks by in the shadows. She can’t stop Dick from getting hurt, but she can watch as he uses words to overcome the situation. It had seemed hopeless, until he spoke. 

She watches his proclamations of Hades’ unjustness, and his proclamations of love. This isn’t hers and Bruce’s story—this is theirs. He actually came for Wally. Color her impressed.

She emerges from the darkness she favors. “Are you going to say no to that?” she asks, Bruce still observing from afar.

Bruce’s expression is dark, but thoughtful. “He’s resourceful,” he rumbles, “and he is more powerful than he thinks.”

Whatever, Selina doesn’t have time for this bullshit. “You have to let them go,” she demands. “Didn’t you hear all that? Didn’t you listen to him sing? Husband, you _must_ —”

“I can't,” Bruce interrupts, shaking his head. “This is the way it is. If I let them go, everyone else will be clamoring to join. He’s already changing things too much.”

“They’re boys, in love,” Selina responds hotly. “What do they care about your rules? They just want each other.”

Bruce’s fists clench. Selina takes a step back. “It would appear,” he says, “that love doesn’t hold much meaning these days.”

She doesn’t flinch, though she thinks she’s supposed to. It’s not her fault their love died, it’s his. Bruce and his stupid cities, and his stupid factories, and stupid contracts. “They’ll leave you alone if you just let them go. Have you no heart?”

“Have you no brain?” Bruce snaps. “It’s not viable.”

“The man I loved thought with his heart,” Selina says, her eyes warming. “The man I loved would do anything to protect the people, not exploit them. The husband I knew would be devastated every time he admitted a child into the Underworld, not—not collect them for sport.”

Bruce sneers. “And you haven’t changed? Where is the goddess of the spring—the one so full of life? Tell me, is she lost in a bottle of whiskey or vodka? You used to listen to me; you used to enjoy my gifts. Like it or not, you’ve changed as well as I.”

“I need a drink,” Selina spits out, before realizing she’s proved his point. “Of water. Somehow you’ve made hell burn even hotter.” 

She starts to storm off, but she looks back. Bruce’s face is turned to the ground.

She doesn’t know why she even tried.

Selina closes her eyes, attempts to ignore the sting of tears, and marches away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're reading this and you haven't listened to Hadestown... what are you doing? because this is when we get through the songs that absolutely slap in vivid detail. the ending, If It's True... a masterpiece. the sheer "fuck capitalism" vibes are my jam.

**Author's Note:**

> will try to update every day. also I will try to fully edit through this later, I'm tired


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